‘Digger’ Review: Tom Cruise Breaks The Action-Hero Mold With His Boldest Role Yet

We are used to Tom Cruise doing the impossible. He climbs buildings, hangs from planes, runs across rooftops, flies fighter jets and saves the world before the end credits. Whether as Ethan Hunt in “Mission: Impossible” or Maverick in “Top Gun”, Cruise has spent decades becoming synonymous with the larger-than-life action hero. So what happens when that same Tom Cruise stops trying to look heroic? “Digger” has an answer and it is gloriously strange.

Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, “Digger” casts Cruise as Digger Rockwell, an eccentric Texas oil tycoon whose business practices have helped push the planet towards an environmental catastrophe. A massive piece of ice breaks away from Greenland and begins drifting towards Europe, threatening devastation on a gigantic scale. Digger’s company is at the centre of the disaster, but accountability is hardly his first instinct. Instead, he barrels into the crisis with the kind of confidence that only a man who has spent his life believing he can buy, bully or charm his way out of anything could possess.

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And then there is Ganesh, played by Riz Ahmed, the scientist who has to keep reminding everyone that the planet does not care how powerful they are. John Goodman plays President Compson, the American president suddenly faced with a crisis far bigger than his political calculations. 

The setup sounds like a disaster movie. “Digger” is anything but a conventional one.

This is a satire that wants to poke fun at climate change denial, politicians, oil companies, big business and the uncomfortable relationship between power and responsibility. It is also willing to point a finger at all of us. Digger’s argument is essentially that the world may complain about fossil fuels while remaining hopelessly addicted to everything they make possible. It is an uncomfortable idea, delivered with enough absurdity to make you laugh before you realise what you are laughing about.

But the film’s biggest act of rebellion is Tom Cruise himself.

Cruise has done eccentric roles before. He has played villains, damaged men and deeply flawed characters. Yet there is something particularly audacious about watching one of Hollywood’s most recognisable action stars disappear into Digger. The prosthetics, the physical transformation, the accent and the sheer grotesqueness of the character make you spend stretches of the film wondering where Tom Cruise has gone. 

That is what makes the performance fascinating. Cruise is not asking the audience to admire Digger. He is asking them to watch him make a fool of himself, get angry, be ridiculous and occupy a screen persona that is almost the opposite of the polished movie star image he has spent decades constructing.

Riz Ahmed gets the pitch of the film beautifully as Ganesh, bringing a sense of reality to a world where everyone else appears to be shouting over the apocalypse. Goodman is equally committed to the film’s deliberately outsized tone. Together, the performances understand that “Digger” is not interested in naturalism. It wants big characters, big ideas and occasionally, very big laughs.

And visually, the film knows how to put on a show. The production design gives the world of Digger an exaggerated, almost theatrical quality while the prosthetics deserve their own applause. There is an undeniable pleasure in simply watching this bizarre universe come to life.

Is “Digger” perfect? No. It is loud, strange, messy and deliberately polarising. Some of its ideas are hammered home rather than gently suggested. But perhaps that is part of the point. This is a movie that refuses to behave itself. 

And that makes it brave.

“Digger” is brave because Cruise has dared to step outside the comfort zone that audiences have built around him. It is brave because Iñárritu is willing to make fun of America, politicians, businessmen and the systems that allow enormous power to operate without enough accountability. Most importantly, it is brave because it does not seem particularly interested in giving audiences the Tom Cruise they already know.

Sometimes brave choices work. Sometimes they don't. But cinema needs actors willing to make them.

Cruise has spent years running towards danger. In “Digger”, his bravest move may simply be standing still and letting us see him differently.

That alone makes the film worth talking about.