Digger Movie Review: Alejandro G. Iñárritu & Tom Cruise Go All Out In A Bizarre, Ambitious & Messy Political Epic

Nelson Acosta September 30, 2026 5 min read

Digger Movie Review: Alejandro G. Iñárritu & Tom Cruise Go All Out In A Bizarre, Ambitious & Messy Political Epic

Digger Review Rating:

Star Cast: Tom Cruise, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Jesse Plemons.

Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu

What’s Good: The cinematography, set design, and production design are just incredible.

What’s Bad: The film becomes too clever for its own good and keeps shooting itself in the foot with how many ideas it wants to work with.

Loo Break: There’s probably a chance at the start of the second act, but there is so much important information that you will definitely miss something important.

Watch or Not?: This is a film for cinema lovers, and it is in that realm where it will find its bigger defenders but also its greatest haters.

Language: English (with subtitles)

Available On: Theaters

Runtime: 129 Minutes

User Rating:

Cinema is struggling; there’s no doubt about that, and so it is getting harder and harder to see filmmakers go for the bold and strange when it comes to big-budget filmmaking, which is why Digger feels like such an outlier and definitely a candidate for one of the best films of the year, although it is clear it will be incredibly divisive for all its political content, strange visuals, and overall chaotic tone.

Digger Movie Review: Script Analysis

The script, written by Iñárritu alongside some of his faithful collaborators, is truly a thing to behold; it is composed of so many ideas that at some point someone must have said that it is a complete mess, and yet they went off with it, resulting in a mix of both clever and powerful moments with some heavy-handed messaging and just plagued with exposition about what the film is, what it must mean, and how you, as an audience member, should feel about it.

The writing will definitely rough some feathers, but at least, for me, it will do it in a good way, pushing buttons and taking many audience members out of their comfort zone, as the movie takes hits at basically everyone; liberals, conservatives, socialists, artists, businessmen—everyone is under fire, and while some will see it as a blow of fresh air, some will see it as aimless and pointless.

The truth is somewhere in the middle; there is definitely a reason why Iñárritu is trying to make everyone angry with the movie, but I appreciate his execution, as Hollywood has definitely been too lenient over the past couple of decades, which has become stale, as it seems every single movie offers the same message, over and over again, so with Digger, a new message — a meaner and more tragic one—takes center stage, and I am all for it.

However, that many ideas, characters, conversations, plotlines, and tangents make for a messy execution, and while the movie has a lot of things to say, it says them in the most erratic possible way, and maybe that is the point: to try to piece it all together, but not many will see it as an enterprise worth taking, especially casual audiences who will probably check out early as the movie goes around and around on all the topics it wants to tackle.

Digger Movie Review: Star Performance

Digger is, of course, led by Tom Cruise, in what could be one of his best roles ever. This is basically what would have happened if they had made a movie about his Tropic Thunder characters and gone all the way to its logical conclusion, and Cruise knows what he is doing, being hilarious, scary, charming, and ruthless all at once. He will probably get a nomination for this when awards season arrives.

The rest of the cast is also working on a high level, with Riz Ahmed being a clear standout, which really makes me happy, as the actor has truly been everywhere at this point, but I don’t think he has been given his flowers. Maybe it will be the case with Digger, and the same goes for the rest of the actors, all of them being a tiny piece of this huge puzzle that needs to be solved, but very few will do it in the end.

Digger Movie Review: Direction, Music

Iñárritu is an Oscar-winning director, so there is very little left to prove for him and his profession other than managing to stay relevant, and he does, as he combined his style with that of Wes Anderson, resulting a very clear visual style that feels just artificial enough to make you pause, but also makes the hyperreality of the film palpable, in ways that a normal look would just make everything feel too much of a caricature.

Emmanuel Lubezki, also known as Chivo, the legendary cinematographer, is also doing some of his best work here, throwing aside some of his more characteristic tools while keeping others, like the use of wide-angle lenses and the use of long tracking shots. It is all there, but there is enough new as not to feel like he is treading water.

Digger Movie Review: The Last Word

In the end, Digger will be controversial, thanks to its willingness to be different, which I appreciate ,even if the resulting film is a bit bumpy, messy, and too enamored with itself at times; there is enough here to make it a worth watch, even if you end up hating it. With Cruise delivering his definitive performance, the one that will probably get him that Oscar that has avoided him for so long, we just have to wait and see how the rest of the industry reacts.