Tom Cruise swaps high-altitude stunts for a bald head, grey hair and a padded frame in Digger, playing a Texas oil tycoon whose drilling operation sets a vast iceberg adrift toward Europe. Directed and co-written by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the dark comedy takes aim at the oil industry, political decision-making and crisis management. Its abrasive style marks a sharp departure from Cruise’s recent action films—and may divide audiences.
Cruise plays an aging oil magnate
Cruise is Digg Rockwell, no longer a nimble, charismatic hero but an aging, boastful oil baron. Heavy prosthetics and a carefully constructed hairstyle transform his screen image. In one scene, he appears in his underwear, a nod to Risky Business.
Rockwell’s mansion is filled with rare animal specimens, yet he is especially protective of his frail pet cat. He also has feelings for his half-sister, played by Sandra Hüller, an entrepreneur in the clean-energy business whose role is relatively small. Rockwell’s main concern, however, is money; environmental damage barely registers with him.
When employees tell him that oil drilling in Alaska has split a glacier, Rockwell initially feigns ignorance. He then downplays the incident, points to the jobs he has created and shifts the blame. The crisis soon becomes impossible to dismiss: an iceberg roughly the size of a small country breaks away and heads toward Northern Europe, with the potential to trigger tsunamis and inundate major cities within days.
Iceberg emergency becomes political satire
The US president, played by John Goodman, convenes an emergency meeting at Rockwell’s mansion. A roomful of men in suits and military uniforms argue around the table, with the film also poking fun at the absence of women. A scientist, played by Riz Ahmed, tries to explain the scale of the danger. The group ultimately decides to use military force to redirect the iceberg. If that fails, they discuss controlling public perception to shield a US company from responsibility for the disaster that follows. The president’s religious adviser responds by insisting that God is on their side.
The premise is deliberately exaggerated, but the film’s focus on a fractured glacier, climate disruption and corporate accountability gives its disaster plot more than an absurdist edge. Iñárritu’s satire extends beyond environmental damage to the response to scientific warnings, companies’ handling of responsibility and the public’s understanding of a crisis.
Two major conceptual twists further reframe the story; revealing them would spoil the film. An extended trailer released earlier led some viewers to wonder whether Digger might have musical elements. Its actual direction is more unexpected.
A 128-minute stylistic experiment
Iñárritu earned Oscar recognition for films including Birdman and The Revenant. Cruise, meanwhile, has never won a competitive Academy Award, though he received an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards the previous year. The film’s eccentric premise and blunt political commentary make it difficult to read as a conventional awards play. It feels more like a stylistic experiment with little interest in pleasing everyone.
At 128 minutes, Digger gives its heightened performances and pointed speeches plenty of room. That approach has costs: repeated scenes of the president ranting in the second half may wear on some viewers. But Cruise’s movement through the sets and his thunderous monologues about the oil industry are central to the film’s distinctive experience. Iñárritu’s restless direction matches the environmental subject matter, while the performances meet the scale of the absurd premise.
With a performer better known for independent cinema in the lead, audiences might be quicker to accept the film as an adventurous art-house project. Cruise’s presence as a major Hollywood star instead raises the question of why he chose such an unusual role. Digger is scheduled to open in US and UK theaters on October 2.