Film Review - Digger (2026)

Digger is the new movie by Alejandro Inarritu and stars Tom Cruise as Digger Rockwell a successful Oil Tycoon who is tasked with preventing an environmental catastrophe when an iceberg linked to one of his energy projects breaks free and is headed towards Europe and as the President (John Goodman) says “Digger got us into this mess and he’s gonna dig us out of it”

Digger is not a good movie despite some standout moments and the main reason for that is to me it takes what is a very serious issue (in this case a climate and environmental catastrophe) and instead of treating it with seriousness and a sense of anger it plays it mostly for laughs and I didn’t find myself laughing really at all while watching this movie,

Now I understand that satirical/comedic movies have been made about serious real world issues but the thing about good satire (and good comedy for that matter) is that the people making that satire have a fundamental understanding of the person and/or issue that their satirizing but this movie does not have that, it wants to instead just point and laugh at the issue and of the silly accents and over the top parodies that might have worked on The Late Show Australia or Saturday Night Live but at 2 hours it more than wears out its welcome,

What I wanted instead was a film full of righteous fury and anger at not only those responsible for the mess but also us as audience members for letting it happen and prioritizing the short term ahead of the greater good and the person I kept thinking of after I saw it and I was digging through it in my head was a young Oliver Stone,

For when you look back at the movies that made his name as a director such as Platoon/Wall Street/Talk Radio and JFK (I haven’t seen Born on the Fourth of July which is why I haven’t listed it here) those films had that anger that fury at their core in regards to how the greed and hubris of a few left only devastation for the many in its wake and Platoon and JFK in particular highlight this in terms of how one event led to a devastating war in Vietnam (one that Stone himself took part in and informed Platoon as a movie) and how in both Wall Street and Talk Radio he showed how charismatic individuals be they talk show hosts or businessmen can ruin almost everything they touch and sometimes simply because they can,

And that was what I wanted from Digger, that sense of “THIS IS THE MESS YOU ALL CREATED WHEN YOU GOT GREEDY, ALL OF THIS IS YOUR DOING”, “The Land is Undeveloped but Rich with Raw Energy and Job Creation” and “YOU’RE A WEAK LEADER, YOU CAVED WHEN YOU SHOULD FIGHT” funnily enough there is one scene in this movie where Digger is addressing what looks like the European Parliament (this scene is in the trailers) and he does point the finger and I sat there thinking “he’s not wrong, they have to take their share of responsibility for what’s happening as well” and if the film had more of that as well as more anger and fury and seriousness instead of bad laughs and satire it would’ve worked much better,

As for Tom Cruise, he’s fine but his wacky accent gets grating after a while and when I was watching it I thought to myself “I wish the Tom Cruise that was recorded yelling at his crew members on the Mission: Impossible set during Covid was in this movie” as that Cruise could’ve done wonders with this role but instead it just feels like another show off performance by a big star, as for the other actors such as John Goodman/Jesse Plemons/Sandra Hueller/Riz Ahmed their okay but felt one note,

And lastly I had this thought as well, if there was someone out there who had the power of a Super Saiyan from Dragon Ball flowing through their veins and they really knew how to use it with the precision of a surgical tool as opposed to a blunt instrument, people like Digger and others would find their prestige to be nothing more than an empty title and their wealth wouldn’t be worth the paper it’s printed on,

And so that was Digger and its another 2026 movie that I just wish was better than it is because there is a great film full of sound of fury at its heart in here but instead it feels more like a tale told by idiots and what is instead said with irony should’ve been said with conviction, what a piece of work is man, 1 out of 5.