Picturehouse Blog

From Pete "Maverick" Mitchell and Ethan Hunt to Jerry Maguire, Jack Reacher and Frank T.J. Mackey, Tom Cruise has spent the last 45 years gifting audiences with one indelible big-screen character after another. Having seen his distinguished celluloid career recognised last year with an honorary Academy Award, the 64-year-old actor could be forgiven for putting his feet up. Instead he's teamed up with Oscar-winning writer-director-producer Alejandro G. Iñárritu to bring us Digger: a stunningly ambitious, wholly original cinematic event that boasts a performance from its star unlike any we've witnessed before. 

Described by its makers as "a comedy of catastrophic proportions", Digger tells of fabulously wealthy oil baron and business titan Digger Rockwell who can legitimately claim to be the most powerful man in the world. When one of his Arctic platforms unleashes a life-imperilling disaster, however, it's up to him to prove himself as humanity's saviour. In the words of the film's harried American president (John Goodman), "Digger here got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us out again!" With nothing less than the fate of the planet hanging in the balance, though, it will take all the guile this cat-loving billionaire possesses to stay on top of the crisis. 

With thinning grey locks, protruding pot belly and thick Southern accent, Cruise (who also produced) undergoes a jaw- dropping metamorphosis in the role of Digger, on a par with Tropic Thunder's iconic Les Grossman. It's no surprise to learn, then, that Iñárritu enlisted the services of Japan's Kazu Hiro, the Oscar-winning prosthetics designer who transformed Gary Oldman into Winston Churchill for 2017's Darkest Hour. 

Working again with his regular cinematographer Emmanuel "Chivo" Lubezki, Iñárritu has fashioned a visually arresting opus – shot in VistaVision, the same high-resolution film format as Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another. He has also assembled an A-list ensemble cast to join Cruise on screen: Four Lions' Riz Ahmed, Bugonia's Jesse Plemons, A Serious Man's Michael Stuhlbarg and Picturehouse fave Sandra Hüller, of Anatomy Of A Fall and Project Hail Mary fame.

Thanks to films like his 2000 feature debut Amores Perros and Oscar winners Birdman and The Revenant, Iñárritu has consistently shown himself to be one of international cinema's most daring and creative storytellers. With its epic scale, unique premise and knockout visuals, Digger looks set to be another unmissable milestone from the Mexican maestro. 

 Neil Smith

In The Know

ONE 

Emmanuel Lubezki is the first man to win the Oscar for Best Cinematography three years in a row, with Gravity, Birdman and The Revenant. 

TWO 

Tom Cruise played Digger in a promotional TIME magazine cover featuring "quotes" from the oil tycoon. The cover line reads "Crude Power'. 

THREE 

Digger is Cruise's first non-action film since 2012's Rock Of Ages. It's his first non-franchise movie since American Made in 2017. 

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Digger is in cinemas from 2 October — Book Now!