“It all feels so fake.”

Story: Digger Rockwell comes from a long line of oil men. Oil men who did whatever it took to get that precious crude. So when a “sudden” iceberg catastrophe hits one of his drilling site in Antarctica, Digger does what anyone in his line would do; denies, covers-up, and blames everybody else. Will he get his act together before the world collapses? Or will he just strut and fret his hour upon the stage? And speaking of stages…

Genre I’d put it in: Desperate Wannabe Oscar Bait
Release Date: 2026
Remake, Sequel, Based-On, or Original :Original, seemingly fueled by ketamine and haphazard surrealism
Animals okay: Maggie, Digger’s 30 year old cat, is in the sweet embrace of eternal rest by the midpoint of the film. But there are tons of taxidermy animals all over his mansion. Most likely fake, but FYI if that’s an ick for you.
Special Shout-out: To everybody in this film. Y’all tried. I hope you got your bag up-front.

Gotta say: Digger asks the question “if the last half hour of a film is actually interesting, does that forgive the staggeringly dreadful first hour and a half?” And that answer is no. No it doesn’t. I’m not mad at the film. I’m not disappointed. I’m disgusted that I wasted over two hours watching this vain attempt at message satire. Alejandro G. Iñárritu, you created The Revenant. You’re better than this.

Then again, with Iñárritu doing triple duty directing/producing/writing this film, it was predisposed to be a bloated mess. When there’s no checks and balances, things tend to fall apart. [waves hands around vaguely at the state of our world] Okay fine; there are five writers for Digger. And that’s a whole lot. Sometimes that works, especially when a new writer comes in to polish up things, and/or do the difficult job of trimming when the main writers can’t bring themselves to. Here? It’s a muddled mess of ideas that have weight to them, but are presented so haphazardly it’s difficult to give even half a damn what’s going on onscreen.

That’s a shame, because the cast is stacked as hell, and they’re all trying their very best. After working several times with the Cohen Brothers, John Goodman is amazing as the dying President Compson. (“I HAVE CANCER OF THE ASSHOLE!”) He knows exactly what he’s there for, and he delivers. Honestly? As much of a mess as this film is, he deserves an Oscar nod for that unhinged, no-holds-barred performance. Jesse Plemons’ climactic soliloquy in the final half-hour is way too good for this film, but luckily the cast is so good it enhances that final hour rather than sticking out as a piece of what could have been. Okay fine; it’s kinda both. As Digger, Tom Cruise acts his ass off, sliding from absolutely crazypants to sincerely emotional. It’s a wild ride, and Cruise does his best to steer the ship away from the iceberg. What? Let me have what little enjoyment I’ve gotten from this film. I sat through the whole damn thing; you can sit through a bad pun. I love you guys, you know.

Gotta hand it to Iñárritu and his creative team though; Digger is a feast for film school nerds. I was absolutely feasting on the symbolism, art direction, and that thin line between satire and farce that Iñárritu burned to the ground. (Yeah I’m mixing metaphors. My brain is still on strike after I forced it to recon with this film.) Digger’s mansion rots and burns as the film progresses, showing how his own world is being affected by his lack of accountability. The strange blend of modern, futuristic, and retro styling that makes sense as the film progresses. And the loving homages to films like Brazil, Pink Floyd The Wall, and the climax of Blazing Saddles.

Unfortunately, even with all the earnest (but embarassingly heavy-handed) pleas to care for our earth, Digger feels more like Mortdecai than Doctor Strangelove. The satire is a bit too disorganized, never letting anything land. There’s a twist early on that slowly – very, very slowly – unfolds to show us that things aren’t exactly what they seem. It’s a great concept, but in the processes of trying to keep things mysterious, that twist ends up ripping viewers out of the story. Pseudo-time jumps, cuts to different characters in different locations with different goals…okay fine, I’m not intererested in not spoiling this. Digger is a story about a play that recounts an apocalypse that happened 25 years beforehand. And y’know what? I wish I’d known that going in. There are films that can do that genre rug-pull effortlessly – looking at you, my beloved From Dusk ‘Til Dawn – but Digger flounders in it’s own artistic desperation.

Okay, I’m way above my 400 word limit to have this count as a 2026 review for my critic’s association. tl;dr? If for some reason you’re headed to see this; like, your college film professor is forcing you, and you need a good grade in that class? Go lit AF. Go knowing that this is an attempt at satirical surrealism that fails. Go knowing that the last half hour is actually pretty good, but that will only make you angrier that you sat through the first hour and a half of nonsense. Go, and then let me know how many times you checked your watch. For me it was four.

#Protip: This is where I was going to put a link to an article that discussed the creation of that Maggie puppet abomination. But I can’t find anything right now. I’d say I’ll come back and link to one later, if I can find one. But who am I kidding? I’m putting this whole experience in my rearview ASAP.