Tom Cruise has spent the better part of four decades sprinting away from explosions, hanging off airplanes, and generally convincing audiences that he is the most capable man alive. In Digger, he finally meets a filmmaker willing to weaponize that image - and the results are as exhausting as they are weirdly fascinating. Alejandro G. Iñárritu's new comedy casts Cruise as Digger Rockwell, described as "the most powerful man in the world," who launches a frantic mission to prove he's humanity's savior before the disaster he himself unleashed wipes everything out. It's a satire with its targets painted on in neon, and it arrives in theaters September 30.
If that premise sounds like it was reverse-engineered to let Cruise play a grandiose version of his own public persona, well, yeah. That's the whole movie.
Cruise and Iñárritu: A Collision of Two Massive Egos
The pairing is the headline here, and not necessarily for the reasons you'd hope. Cruise is a performer who thrives on precision and control; Iñárritu is a director who thrives on chaos, long takes, and the sense that the universe is personally offended by human ambition. Put them together and you'd expect friction, combustion, something volatile. What you get instead, according to early reactions, is a film insufferably pleased with itself - a satire that keeps nudging you in the ribs to make sure you caught the joke.
Cruise plays Digger Rockwell with the same coiled intensity he brings to Ethan Hunt, except this time the stakes are self-inflicted and the hero is the villain. That's a juicy setup for an actor who has rarely allowed himself to be the butt of the joke. Whether he's in on it or simply enjoying the chance to monologue is part of the fun, though the film apparently can't decide which register it wants him in.
The supporting cast, at least on paper, is absurdly stacked. Riz Ahmed plays Ganesh, John Goodman steps in as President Compson, Sandra Hüller appears as Emma, and Michael Stuhlbarg takes the Vice President. Add Jesse Plemons as Kenny, Robert John Burke as Fitzgerald, and Emma D'Arcy as Lena, and you've got a roster that would make most awards-season ensembles jealous. It's the kind of cast that suggests everyone wanted a ticket to the event - and the event, for better or worse, is watching a movie star get taken down a peg by an auteur with a grudge.
A Comedy That Forgets to Be Funny
Here's the rub: Digger is filed under Comedy, runs 129 minutes, and is in English. It's a Hollywood production through and through, which makes its contempt for power feel a little like biting the hand that feeds it - and then asking that hand for a second financing round. Satire about the wealthy and powerful is hardly new territory, but Iñárritu's approach here leans so hard into smugness that the message gets buried under the smirk.
The most powerful man in the world racing to prove he's humanity's savior while everything crumbles around him is a solid premise. It's practically a metaphor begging to be written. But a metaphor only lands if the film trusts its audience enough to connect the dots, rather than screaming them in your face for two hours. Early word suggests Digger is far more interested in being seen as clever than in actually being clever.
That said, the movie's TMDb rating sits at a healthy 8.1/10, which suggests audiences are responding to something here - the sheer spectacle of Cruise playing against type, maybe, or the catharsis of watching an empire-builder fail spectacularly. There's an appetite for watching the untouchable squirm, and Cruise's willingness to occupy that space is genuinely notable.
The Verdict Hangs in the Balance
So is Digger a misfire, a secret masterpiece, or something messier in between? The elements are all there: a director with a distinctive voice, a star willing to get ugly, a cast most films would kill for, and a premise built to provoke. What's missing, at least according to the harshest early takes, is any sense of humility about what it's doing.
Cruise and Iñárritu are both maximalists - artists who believe more is more, who trust grand gestures over quiet ones. That combination could have produced something unforgettable. Instead, Digger looks destined to be remembered mostly as a curio: the time Tom Cruise let a serious filmmaker turn him into a punchline, and the punchline never quite landed.
It hits theaters September 30. Whether you walk out exhilarated or irritated probably says as much about your tolerance for self-satisfied satire as it does about the film itself.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
