Mladen and Del review ‘Digger’

Warner Bros. / Legendary

“Digger” starring Tom Cruise as just‑giving‑you‑what‑you‑want oilman Digger; Riz Ahmed as there‑are‑such‑things‑as‑facts‑and‑reality scientist Ganesh; John Goodman as U.S. President Compson and Mother Earth; Sandra Huller as Emma, a person who can afford to be an environmentalist’ Jesse Plemons as a‑woe‑is‑me nepo baby Kenny; and others. Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu. Written by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Alexander Dinelaris, and Nicolas Giacobone. Scoreby Cosmo Sheldrake. Rated R. 2 hours, 9 minutes. Theatrical release.

Are there spoilers: You bet your high temperature hockey stick there are! The biggest one of ’em all is in the plot summary directly below, so read at your own risk.

Plot summary: Twenty-five years after a climate‑change catastrophe swatted northern Europe and Alaska, a play recalling the series of events that led to the tragedy is shown at a refurbished theater. The play’s culprit or hero – it depends on your political tastes – is Digger (Honeywell), an oilman.

Mladen’s take

“Mickey 17” (2025) is a political and social satire movie I want to like but can’t. “Digger,” now playing in theaters, is a political and social satire film I want to dislike but can’t.

Why?

First of all, it’s a helluva acting effort by Cruise. Had “Digger” been more straightforward – it takes a while to understand how the film will unfold to tell its story of consequential climate change impacts, political corruption, bullshit religion, and heartless accounting – Cruise would be a contender for a Best Actor Oscar nomination. There’s a small chance that he’ll get it anyway but no chance of a win because the film starts off, ah, weird and annoying‑ish. I got pissed when the movie shifted to make me think that Iceberg Judy never happened, that everything I was watching was just a schtick.

But where Cruise’s Digger and the film’s message converge to make clear points is very good and satisfying and, for me at least, edifying. What we get is a knowing encapsulation of how the wealthy and their politicians wrap the “truth” with warped realism, which is itself based on our – as in the whole of humanity – need for convenience and comfort.

There’s Digger telling a bunch of, I don’t know, European Union Parliament members that they’re as much at fault for the coastal cities of their countries getting wiped out as any oilman or oil company. Want affordable electricity and gasoline now? Ain’t no way to get it without extracting Black Gold from the Earth. And, I’m like sitting in my plastic and polyester clad theater seat made from oil in a large air conditioning auditorium watching a movie propelled at the two‑story screen by a large projector running on Alternating Current (generated by, what, natural gas or oil) and thinking to myself, “Yeah, I love driving my car.”

“Digger” also does a good job making the argument that science facts are immutable no matter how we “perceive” them. That point is made nicely, again and again, by Ahmed’s Ganesh, a nonwhite scientist whose nonwhiteness is used by a U.S. Army general to discredit the facts about what caused Iceberg Judy to calve, where the billions of tons of ice will go, and the damage it would cause when it hits the continental shelf in the Baltic Sea.

Another piece of fine acting is Goodman as President Compson. Compson is Trump‑like in several ways. He’s old and his health is deteriorating. At one point, Compson rants that him and the planet are one and that makes him the only person who has the right to make decisions on behalf of all mankind. The rant is terrific. When it strays toward blaming Russia for another supermassive iceberg, this one on its way to Alaska, Compson decides its time to nuke the commies. He’s deterred only when informed that he’d have to read the instructions that accompany the Nuclear Football. “Read?” spouts an indignant Compson. He is also disappointed that there isn’t an actual red launch button that he would push to let the missiles fly. Yeah, Trump to a tee. 

“Digger” is a solid B+ of political satire. The acting is good. Much of the writing is good. The score and the sound effects are top‑notch. The movie’s plot hits the mark. The problem is the gimmicky way, an after‑the‑fact play, that the story of the dangers of ignoring a warming planet is told.

Del’s take

The critics are tearing “Digger” apart.

The bean counters are declaring it the biggest flop of 2026.

They’re right. I predict “Digger” will fail, and it will fail spectacularly. Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures will never earn back the money they spent on this film.

But not because it’s a bad movie.

Oh, the critics hate it. They’re saying Iñárritu is a bombastic narcissist and “Digger” is nothing more than a testament to a grandiose vision of his own importance.

Moviegoers will hate it – moviegoers in America, that is.

They’ll hate it because it doesn’t star a guy wearing spangly, shimmery spandex who shoots lightning bolts from his eyes. It’s not a cartoon about talking sloths who learn important lessons about sharing. It’s not a simple action movie, or comedy, or love story, or anything they can wrap their brains around without dislocating their neckbones.

It’s satire. Worse, it’s black satire, on the order of “Doctor Strangelove,” “Don’t Look Up,” and that blackest of black satire, “Being There.”

Americans don’t do satire. Americans don’t like satire. Americans want to be entertained, not edified. They want to leave the world behind for two hours and not think.

“Digger’s” towering fatal flaw, however, is that it’s a two-hour lecture about climate change, and if Americans hate satire, they really hate satirical lectures about climate change. I should know. Now that I’m retired and don’t have to put on pants in the morning, I start my days with a walk at the local park, where I record rants for social media. Whenever I rant about climate change, I see the eyes of my audience rolling back in the sockets. “Engagement,” that carcinogenic metric of the 21^st century, goes circling down the toilet. Many Americans believe climate change is a hoax, thanks to that Imbecile in Chief in the White House. But even Americans who DO believe in climate change won’t watch a two-hour satirical lecture about it.

That’s a shame, because despite what the critics say, “Digger” is a pretty good movie.

Hell, I remember what the critics said about “The Terminator.” To put it bluntly, they hated it. Just like they hated John Carpenter’s “The Thing.”

Now, both movies are considered classics.

“Digger” won’t be a classic, but it’s pretty good and you should see it – IN the movie theater, please. It makes two important points:

No. 1: You want our oil.

You want your cars, your Big Macs, your iPhones, your AC, your Ozempic – hell, you want all that shit and you want it now. You may fuss about the manatees or how hot it was last summer, but by God you’re gonna have your Sea Ray and you’re gonna drive that motherfucker 60 mph across the bay and if you chop up a few manatees along the way, well, like Digger says, that’s the cost of doing business.

No. 2: In the end, most Americans will do nothing to change anything, because their outrage is strictly performative. The president steals $20 million from border security and memorial plaques for police officers, and spends it on ads glorifying himself, in flagrant violation of federal law? Fuss about it on social media and move along. And then, in November, vote for the candidate who promises lower gas prices.

Digger is the perfect antagonist for a group of people who believe nothing is real unless they see it on TV. Or the internet.

But don’t tell them that. They’d rather swallow the fiction of beer commercials and pickup trucks, which show hard-working, simple-living, sweat-of-the-brow bootstrappers who help little old ladies cross the street and go to church every Sunday before mowing the yard, washing the car and sitting down to a family dinner of pot roast and mashed potatoes.

The reality is far uglier, as are the prospects of climate change. But let’s not think about that because it’s icky. And besides, it might mean we actually have to do something.

I’m giving “Digger” an A-. The movie’s structure is weird and there are lulls in the pacing, but Tom Cruise is terrific and very much deserves an Oscar nomination. Goodman and Huller are also gold, though Huller’s part is much smaller. Guess I just like her. Riz Ahmed as the scientist torn between his job and the truth is also excellent. He deserves a supporting Oscar nom.

But “Digger” will fail – for all the wrong reasons, in my opinion.

Maybe when the ocean comes marching in, Americans will change their mind.

Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.