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| Title: | Digger |
| Year: | 2026 |
| Genre: | Satire |
| IMDb: | link |
| RT: | link |
Review synopsis: Digger (2026) is a powerful film, bolstered by bravura performances by Tom Cruise and the rest of the stellar cast (essentially all of which plays against type), as well as by a sharp script and breathtaking direction by Alejandro G. Iñárritu. It is, however, as far from cinematic comfort-food as it is possible to be, which easily explains its free-fall at the box office. Instead, it is a film that tackles heady themes emotionally and emotional topics cerebrally, this making for a unique and highly rewarding cinematic experience for those willing to go into the theatre with their eyes open, their brains functioning, and a willingness to be surprised. The humour, like all humour, is clearly never going to please everyone at every turn — though I laughed through the lot of it — but in a world where comedies are now few and far between, and comedy itself has been repeatedly declared dead, this callback to such classic black comedies as Dr. Strangelove and even Life is Beautiful is, at least by me, highly welcome, and very worthy to be experienced in a theatre.
The following review of Digger (2026) is spoiler free, knowing that most of you have probably never even heard of it, and yet I would like to make the case that you should rush to the theatre to catch it before it inevitably disappears — which it is set to do very shortly, given how badly it has bombed commercially. I will try to keep this review short, but if you want the really short version, here it is: "Go see it right now." I did not want, in this review, to fail addressing some of the film's purported shortcomings, as pointed out by other reviewers, so there are sections of this review dealing with the humour, the themes and even the film's ending. None of them contain spoilers, but if you really want to go into the film without baggage, feel free to skip them now and come back to them after you've watched it.
It's been exactly one year since I wrote my previous full-4-star film review, that one for A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, and I feel the two films share more than just that. Many years ago I made a promise to myself to watch in a movie theatre any film that comes out of Hollywood that is original. I'm willing to accept some very weak definitions of originality for this purpose, and it's still not costing me very much: one film a year as of this past year, and the prospect is that this rate will only go down. (Digger is roughly the last film to be released by Warner Bros before it was acquired by Paramount, and the current heads at Paramount are even more averse to original content than those at WB were. I believe that if one wants to see more original contents in cinemas, one should go and see original content when it is in cinemas. Normally, this argument is coupled with the idea that buying theatre tickets supports — albeit highly indirectly — those artists who created said original content. In this particular case, because of Warner Bros's acquisition by Paramount, your hard-earned money spent on movie tickets will undoubtedly end up in the wrong hands, but even so, perhaps it will send them the right message. One can only hope.)
So, with both Digger and A Big Bold Beautiful Journey I felt it was time to pay the pied piper, and I went to see a film that was utterly savaged by critics and movie-goers alike. (To be fair, Digger is savaged by both professional critics and YouTube critics, but its audience reaction is not nearly as bad. On IMDb it presently stands at a comfortable 7.5, and Rotten Tomatoes, despite a disastrous "Tomatometer" critics score, gives it a cosy "76% fresh" rating by the audience. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey wasn't nearly this graciously received, and I suspect some of that has to do with the huge marketing budget that Digger had, which could have easily been diverted to game the scales a little.) I was, in both cases, pretty sure I was going to witness a disaster — perhaps an interesting disaster, but a disaster nonetheless — and in both cases walked out thinking this was the best new film I've seen in a long time.
The two films also share some of their DNA: they both create stylised, surreal realities... and then are not afraid to play around with them, kick their tyres, and examine further layers of reality underneath. These are audacious themes, which have to be executed deftly and with panache if they are to work at all, and I think both were entirely wasted on modern 2020s audiences that need everything simple, quick, and spoon-fed to them verbally. A film that pretends to be simple, while actually requiring audiences to keep their thinking caps on and is unafraid to challenge them on multiple levels — such a film is beyond the grasp of today's audiences, and I am not surprised about the reception both films received. But at the same time, these are my favourite type of films, I was overjoyed to witness them on the big screen, was ecstatic to be able to share this joy with my wife who accompanied me to both films — It takes a lot to get her to like a film, as anything that fails to continuously engage and challenge her she will happily fall asleep in, and yet both films had her spellbound beginning to end — and hope to convince some of you to give them a chance, because they are worth it, because such films are precious and rare, and because I think that if you're reading the reviews on this website, there's a good chance that you, too, enjoy this kind of movies.
With that comparison out of the way, let me tell you just a tiny bit about Digger, just enough to whet your appetite for it, and beyond that I will keep this review as brief as I know how to make them, because I think the less preconception baggage you carry with you into the cinema, the more you will enjoy the film.
It's good to see Cruise digging deeper than Ethan Hunt once in a while, but to be fair we already knew he could do it. This is not Cruise's most transformative role. (That honour goes to Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder (2008), and in many ways "Digger" is the answer to all those viewers who have been wishing for years for a full-length Les Grossman-centred movie. Cruise is doing here many of Grossman's trademark shticks, but somehow manages to revive this character — or, at least, to portray a quite similar and equally outlandish character — while somehow, miraculously, managing to embue it with three-dimensionality in a portrayal that is layered and nuanced.) It is also not Cruise's most "bad guy" role (That would be Vincent from Michael Mann's Collateral (2004)) or even his best performance (That would be the sleazy misogynist Frank T.J. Mackey in Magnolia (1999)), but it's definitely up there with all of these, and borrows strengths from all of them. (For example, Jesse Plemons's character remarks at one point about the constant uncertainty in "Digger"'s eyes. I can't think of any other role by Cruise that can be characterised this way, other than Frank Mackey.)
And it's not just Cruise that delivers here a stellar performance. Digger as a whole knowingly quotes, in visuals, sounds and themes, much from Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1964), and I don't think it's a coincidence that the film's three leads, Cruise, John Goodman and Riz Ahmed, parallel exactly the three roles of Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove. (Goodman is the president; Cruise, in the titular role, is the adviser a little too close to him and with a little too much of a side-agenda; and Ahmed is the voice of reason that is nearly inaudible when the former two take the stage.)
Goodman is a veteran comedian and is here in top form, and he and Cruise ping-pong their dialogues in a manner totally worthy of Peter Sellers, and Ahmed, playing as close to a straight-man as this film has, has risen to their challenge and is playing at their level.
The rest of the cast is just as phenomenal, but two standouts in minor roles still deserve a special mention. Sandra Hüller, fresh off of her turn saving the world in Project Hail Mary (2026), is portraying here a very different kind of environmentalist, with the contrast between the two characters providing ample hilarity. Meanwhile, Jesse Plemons, also playing here brilliantly against type (as does each of the four previously mentioned others), provides here, surprisingly, the emotional heart of the story, proving just how much a great actor can do with only a handful of lines.
Regarding the last of these cohorts: if you go to the cinema for escapism, this film really isn't for you. As said: this is a thinking-person's film. Regarding the first cohort: I don't personally care if the message of the film is one I agree with or not; what I want to see is whether the point is argued in an interesting and compelling way.
This brings us to the remaining cohort, which is namely those who think the discussion was shallow. To those I say: if what you wanted was a discussion on the merits of protecting the environment, then Iñárritu fooled you here on multiple levels. That discussion is indeed barely there, probably because Iñárritu believes the point is obvious. What we do get, instead, is both a textual discussion regarding the balance of power and how it is maintained, and a meta-textual discussion regarding the purpose of satire and the merits of dramatic license. On both levels, we are confronted with questions of reality vs. narrative, and while I think much of what Iñárritu has to say about these topics is interesting, the specific questions of reality vs. narrative is, I think, one whose importance is steadily increasing, and Iñárritu purposefully asks it of an audience now living in a knowingly post-truth world.
In short, this is not just a clever satire, it's a clever discussion about satire.
Just to give a taste of what I mean, one of the many points raised by this film is that when reality is truly horrible, we must be able to laugh at it. The film argues that the alternative to laughter is not tears, but rather a self-protective apathy and emotional disconnect. If we want people to care, if we want them to be able to be horrified, if we want them to be emotionally engaged at all, then the first step is to make them laugh. This is clearly not an entirely new revelation: "Make 'Em Laugh" was written for Singing in the Rain (1952), and this wisdom, passed on from generation to generation by many a Yiddish-speaking grandmother, was surely not lost on Roberto Benigni when he made the Oscar-winning Life is Beautiful in 1997, but I have never heard it discussed as a main theme in a Hollywood movie, certainly not in the 21st century, so this was to me very refreshing. By all means, send in the clowns.
I think that much of one's opinions about the film can ultimately be traced to how one handles this one, single revelation. And, for once, I think the marketing department got it wrong by not revealing the twist.
I had listened to many reviewers before seeing Digger, and one of them did let for me this cat out of the bag. Not only did this increase my enjoyment of the film, it also helped my wife, who asked me what was going on at the very point where the twist happens and things went off the rails, because I was able to explain it to her immediately, in only a few words, and instead of being thrown completely out of the plot she was immediately with it again, and enjoying it.
Not only is this twist a little too clever for its own good, and not nearly well-enough foreshadowed, in my opinion it is not even properly meant to be a "twist". (To give an idea: this is something that happens at the end of Act I; truly, from a plot point of view, the end of Act I is the worst place to plant a twist, because the whole purpose of Act I is to present and build the main conflict to be explored — a twist would indicate that this entire build-up was meaningless and needs to be thrown away.)
So, if there is anything I can say (short of revealing the secret) to help you enjoy Digger, it is this: don't think about the revelation at the end of Act I as a twist at all. It is something that adds another layer to the discussion, but does not throw away the original perspective. The film encourages you to keep both these perspectives in mind, getting a more three-dimensional view of what is presented by sheer stereoscopy.
It is a haunting shot, which I still think about. And if that's not a sterling endorsement, I don't know what is.