Digger

Digger Rockwell. A titan of industry. A figure of fun? Sharing his name with the aviation firm that gave us the Apollo Command Module and the Hellfire missile, a Christian Socialist splinter from the 17th century Levellers, he is soaring ambition and fire and brimstone and a strong belief in something that is complicated to label. He is brought to life by another big name, Tom Cruise.

It's an astonishing performance. We've seen Cruise in prosthetics before, but for all that Tropic Thunder had a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude it's in Digger that the timing that separates comedy from tragedy is played for more than just laughs. Not that there aren't a few, part of a tonal gamut that reminds us that the common thread between hilarity and horror is revelation, catharsis.

Though the Albigensians gave us "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius," it's in John Goodman's President Compson that we see the end result of that unity of God knowing his own and "kill 'em all". He's one of dozens of supporting roles (and roles that in turn support those) that make Digger something special. In and among a series of modern-day 'that guys' from Michael Stuhlbarg to Burn Gorman are people who haven't yet worked with Guillermo del Toro, like Riz Ahmed and Sandra Hüller. They've almost always got to share a screen with Cruise, and throughout they are playing at the top of their game.

Alejandro G Iñárritu is having fun as a director. Scenes and production design that recall works by Kubrick, by Roy Andersson, by Rob Reiner. As one of a team of writers the black comedy of Birdman is variously a touchstone, but his co-writers bring their own strengths. Nicolás Giacobone returns from Birdman, joined by novelist and screenwriter Sabina Berman. Another previous collaborator Alexander Dinelaris Jr. wrote the book for the Gloria Estefan jukebox musical On Your Feet! and it's in musicals that some of the issues with Digger are paralleled.

There's a tendency to believe that audiences won't see musicals, and so the marketing for them hides that they are musicals, and when audiences, unsuspecting, discover they are musicals the reaction is poor. Digger isn't a musical, it's possibly worse than that - it asks audience to think. I found myself pondering the extent to which Digger not being the things that it isn't makes it even more the thing that it is. It's clearly dividing audiences, I saw it with my usual filmgoing companion but the person next to us walked out. The nature of the film is such that I do not think surprise is essential, but I believe it's better for it. I had and have confidence in Iñárritu, in Cruise, and felt rewarded for it.

Others will, and do, disagree. Cruise is the last movie star in the same way the USA is the last superpower. It's as much a question of era as of category. As discussion around film becomes ever cruder there has been focus on box-office and marketing that's apparently left potential audiences confused. Hell mend them. This may be speaking from a position of privilege, but one of the joys of going to see a film is the unexpected. That's one of the few things in Digger that one can expect. One of the things that makes Digger commendable is that it invites such mixed reactions. It does so with the same verve and invention as One Battle After Another and with the same degree of reverence for source text.

Having talked of musicals, the score by Cosmo Sheldrake (in his cinematic début) is one of multiple highlights, production design, puppetry, all that business of show, the process of the proscenium, all of it delighted me. Digger is not a film that invites fence sitting. I'm tempted, goodness knows, and while it's attributed to another wartime President (Harry S Truman) the plea for a one-armed expert to avoid the "on the other hand" caveat appeared in the late Thirties to criticise an electoral platform's stance on soil conservation. That said, there's something neat about thresholds, about dividing lines.

In A Few Good Men Colonel Jessep said "you need me on that wall," and Cruise is at least as stentorian when he explains why Digger's audience needs what he gives. I would be too, if it were easier to raise my voice while typing. Let me try this with a bit of echo. Digger is a hole. You'll get more out of it if you're willing to put some effort in. You might also find it empty, but like any abyss, if you gaze into it long enough you will get something back.

Reviewed on: 18 Oct 2026