‘Digger’: How Its Big Twist Saves the Movie From Being a Complete Disaster (Opinion)

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains major spoilers for “Digger,” in theaters now via Warner Bros.

When does a bad movie become a fascinating watch?

So often the kiss of death for a feature is boredom; that feeling you’ve seen the same story many times before, the actors are checked out, there’s no visual panache. That’s not the case with “Digger.” While it’s shaping up to be a box office disaster, the movie is anything but dull. Tom Cruise leads the cast in acting to the rafters, DP Emmanuel Lubezki keeps the camera moving and director Alejandro G. Iñárritu injects plenty of swagger in the proceedings.

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Unfortunately, the film’s opening — an extended introduction to Cruise’s ambitious oilman Digger Rockwell — is so in-your-face that it sags under the weight. Cruise is in grotesque prosthetics, eager to show us as quickly as possible how uncouth Digger is: He eats from the same can of sardines as his beloved cat, his butt crack is seen in plain view of his maid, his comb-over wisps wildly.

It’s a clichéd character surrounded by other bobbling caricatures that enter and exit the rooms of his mansion, flailing wildly as Digger learns that his oil company might have inadvertently caused a climate-based global disaster. It’s shrill and tired, and despite the best intentions of the filmmakers to cause provocation around environmentalism, it’s about as subtle as Cruise turning to the camera and screaming, “DO YOU GET IT?!?” Ultimately, the poster’s promise of “a comedy of catastrophic proportions” seems more like a threat than a guarantee of “Dr. Strangelove”-esque genius.

But then, an interesting twist happens. No, “Digger” isn’t a musical, but rather reveals that everything we’ve seen so far is a group of actors rehearsing an ambitious play about Digger called “Fossil Fools.” We’re witnessing the tech rehearsal hours before the show is set to debut in front of an audience, and Cruise drops his broad southern accent, revealing himself as Curtis Markson, the star of the show who has difficulty finding the satirical rhythm.

It’s an engagingly meta turn, and shows much more of Cruise’s psyche than audiences might expect. During a teflon press tour hyping “Digger,” journalists weren’t able to conjure anything personal or interesting from him. But during a scene where Cruise argues with “Fossil Fools” director Hannah (Sophie Wilde) about satire versus real-world events, the artifice of Cruise’s fat suit and cowboy boots melts away, and the fire in his eyes that made iconic performances in films like “Magnolia” and “Eyes Wide Shut” blaze returns in flashes.

It also helps to contextualize Iñárritu’s vision of satire itself. Some reviews of “Digger” have knocked the very idea of satirical films in 2026. After all, how can anything feel larger-than-life in the Trump era? But given the put-on-a-show staging, the film’s structure adds further firepower to standout scenes like Digger holding court in the United Nations, tap-dancing around a global community ready to feed him to the wolves after he doubles down on his wrongdoing.

The showcase scene is emphasized by the fact that everything is underwritten by Digger’s real-life nephew Kenny (Jesse Plemons), who bought the rights to “Fossil Fools” and used his vast wealth to fund the production. His motivations are many, as he implies that he’s doing it out of a mix of penance, flagellation and tribute to his family name. But ultimately he’s a benefactor of the arts. The themes make it impossible to ignore the real-life soap opera currently happening at “Digger” studio Warner Bros., where new owner David Ellison swears he bought the company for all the right reasons.

“Digger” ends on a somber note, with the audience methodically putting on gas masks and emptying the gorgeous theater, stepping into the dystopian world that remains after Digger’s environmental disaster. Flooded streets, discarded cars and military police are all around, until the camera tilts to the sky and the soundtrack becomes overwhelmed with the natural noises of wild animals. It’s a chilling wrap, as well as a dour end to what appears to be the last Warner Bros. film ever released.

Not all of the elements tied to the twist work — Curtis’ search for his daughter’s missing flight during the tech rehearsal is curiously underbaked — but at least it teases a flurry of ideas instead of drowning in clumsy dialogue. At its best, it recalls Charlie Kaufman’s far superior 2008 film “Synecdoche, New York,” in which Philip Seymour Hoffman is a theater director who, in the pursuit of truth, creates a full-scale recreation of New York City in a warehouse in order to accurately reflect life. It, too, looks at the idea of understanding larger truths through a stage production, but is more clever and sincere.

Ultimately, even the decision to add another layer, becoming a story about art just as much as one about the climate crisis, doesn’t escalate “Digger” into must-see territory. But the cross section of cinephiles who will be compelled to catch it in theaters — Cruise completists, flop aficionados, rubberneckers who want to see the world burn — will have more to chew on than the artifice presented at the beginning.