What do you get when you put a 64-year-old Tom Cruise in unrecognizable prosthetics? 65 year old Digger Rockwell, the petropreneur that doomed the world of DIGGER (2026).
The action star lays his heart out to bare with his newest black comedy DIGGER, the Alejandro G. Iñárritu directed film that has received mixed reviews since its release in October of this year. And yet, the predicted ‘future cult classic’ has been slowly climbing the stars on popular cinephile app Letterboxd, starting from a 3.5, now sitting comfortably at a 3.9 (a rather impressive climb for the typically harsh app). Cruise’s unrecognizable performance as Digger Rockwell however has not been able to turn over its $180 million budget, as only $40 million has been made back in the box office…
Perhaps a reason for DIGGER’s poor performance was due to its questionable marketing campaign choices. Many people’s criticisms of the film’s marketing campaign was the sole focus on Tom Cruise. While the A list actor did prove that title with his performance, the inclusion of ‘Tom Cruise is DIGGER’ on most of the marketing material- becomes repetitive and uninteresting after a while… Especially as the black comedy had such a rich commentary on the rich in power.
Another questionable choice was the inclusion of clips that weren’t in the film, in the trailers. A common fan theory before the film release, was that it was a musical- or at least had dancing- perhaps Cruise perhaps spending too much time with A Few Good Men co-star, Kevin Bacon of Footloose fame…
The misdirection of the trailers, however, was likely intentional. As, spoilers ahead, the trailers we saw on our screens, were also the trailers for the in universe play Fossil Fools.
The twist in DIGGER was watching the cataclysmic events that ruined the in-universe world of the film, turned into a satire play for the survivors to watch- we as an audience get to watch the events of the play during a test rehearsal before opening night. As we become wiser to the events that caused the world to become a wasteland, the film closes to the haunting 1970 Melanie song ‘Look what they’ve done to my song, ma’ which echoes the sheer level of ruin as the sirens blast ‘level 4’.
One of the most impressive feats of DIGGER is Cruise’s ten-minute monologue, which acts as a metacommentary on the oil/ energy industry, and our complicit use of energy. The monologue at first value seems like Digger Rockwell’s digging himself further into insanity. However, he slowly builds up into a bombast about the complicity of humanity in poisoning our planet,” but it’s worth it to charge our phones.”
DIGGER (2026) has its issues no doubt, the metacommentary, the questionable marketing, narcissistic director, etc… And yet, Cruise’s performance, and the rest of the brilliantly talented cast all aid into creating a film that leaves you with a sense of dread by the end.
In a good way.
