You’ve seen Tom Cruise morph into aging bigwigs with big bellies and big watches—but you’ve never seen him like this. The veil of mystery over Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s next film is finally lifted with the trailer premiere for Digger, which burrows into theatres 2 October.
Following months of speculation over just what the heck Digger is about, we finally get the gist: Tom Cruise stars as Digger Rockwell, an eccentric oil tycoon whose billion-dollar operation in Alaska is at the centre of a natural catastrophe. The president of the United States, played by John Goodman, tasks Digger with saving not only America but the entire world.
Essentially a modernised Dr. Strangelove set against the climate crisis and Big Oil, Digger has all the makings of a satirical classic with a locked-in Tom Cruise at the center of it all. Frankly, the frenetic trailer has divided us here at Esquire—some of us are sold more than others—but all of us are deeply curious to see how Cruise and Iñárritu walk the tightrope between ambition and brilliance. Gonzo isn’t really the right word to describe Digger, but it’s undeniably bursting with personality.
I mean, when POTUS asks his advisors for their “worst-case scenario,” he’s informed by a man named Ganesh (Riz Ahmed): “USD18 trillion, sir.” Cue a bunch of old white men sitting around in a gilded room freaking out. Doesn’t get simpler than that. Also, they try to “bomb” nature. Because that’s how America tends to solve its problems.
You can watch the trailer for Digger below.
In addition to Cruise, Goodman, and Ahmed, Digger also stacks its cast with Oscar nominee Sandra Hüller, Jesse Plemons, Michael Stuhlbarg, Sophie Wilde, Emma D’Arcy, and RoboCop 3’s Robert John Burke.
As for Cruise, well, he’s no Ethan Hunt in Digger. A prodigious gut, thinning white hair, and a southern drawl that sounds more like a space alien doing an impersonation of a Texas tycoon than someone actually from Texas. The man stands out in a room—or, more specifically, a circular chamber zapped of saturation. Cruise has played freaks of this kind before—we remember his Golden Globe–nominated performance in Tropic Thunder—but Cruise is front and centre in Digger. He is the movie, and it’s going to be a hell of a time watching him go buck wild as a god with an oil-executive complex.
Personally, I’m all in on Digger. If it hits, it’s going to hit as an end-of-year satire that feels calibrated to roast our Saturday-morning cartoon of a political landscape. If it misses, then it’ll be a grand misfire that we ought to see more of than safer, four-quadrant nothing burgers. You might even say I dig it.
