What happens when you put Tom Cruise—the last true movie star, the man who does his own stunts and makes the impossible look easy—in the hands of Alejandro G. Iñárritu, a director known for punishing himself and everyone around him in pursuit of cinematic perfection?
We're about to find out. Digger, Iñárritu's next film, stars Cruise as "the most powerful man in the world" on a frantic mission to prove he's humanity's savior. The supporting cast is stacked: Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Jesse Plemons, Sandra Hüller, and Emma D'Arcy.
This is the kind of pairing that either produces a masterpiece or an expensive disaster. There's no middle ground when two perfectionists of this caliber collide.
Iñárritu doesn't do easy. Birdman was shot to look like one continuous take. The Revenant required Leonardo DiCaprio to sleep in animal carcasses and eat raw bison liver. The man is allergic to shortcuts, and he expects his actors to match his obsessive commitment.
Cruise, meanwhile, is famous for doing the same thing—but on a blockbuster scale. He's the guy who hung off the side of a plane at 5,000 feet, who learned to fly helicopters for a single chase sequence, who broke his ankle mid-stunt and finished the take anyway. He doesn't just commit; he overcommits.
So what happens when these two forces meet? My guess: something ambitious, exhausting, and probably a little self-serious. Iñárritu doesn't do popcorn entertainment, and Cruise in "save humanity" mode tends to lean messianic. But if they pull it off, Digger could be the rare prestige action film that actually earns its pretensions.
In , nobody knows anything—except me, occasionally. And I know this: is either going to be awards bait or a glorious trainwreck. Either way, I'm watching.
