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Tom Cruise’s ‘Digger’ Just Got the Most Polarizing First Reactions of His Career

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Awards season buzz has a way of building slowly, but every so often a single title arrives and completely scrambles the conversation. That is exactly what has happened with Tom Cruise’s latest project, a film that has spent months shrouded in mystery and speculation ahead of its release. After years of Cruise dominating multiplexes with high-octane action franchises, this new role represents one of his biggest creative swings in decades.

The film in question is ‘Digger,’ the latest directorial effort from Oscar winner Alejandro González Iñárritu, the filmmaker behind ‘Birdman’ and ‘The Revenant.’ Described as an apocalyptic satire, the movie casts Cruise as Digger Rockwell, an ostentatious oil baron operating in a kind of “Dr. Strangelove” register, with John Goodman and Riz Ahmed rounding out the cast.

Now that the film has finally screened for press following screenings in New York and Los Angeles, along with a London premiere, the first reactions have arrived, and they are anything but unanimous. Critics have used everything from “baffling” and “unpleasant” to “brave and gorgeous art film” to describe the experience, and the split has been immediate and loud.

Variety’s Chief Awards Editor Clayton Davis captured the mood well, praising Cruise and Goodman’s performances along with the film’s production design and cinematography while admitting the story’s ambitious ideas do not all come together in the end. He wrote that he respected the swing Iñárritu was taking, even as he wished the film leaned harder into the absurdity it kept reaching for, concluding that the divide on this one is going to be wide.

Much of the pre-release buzz around ‘Digger’ centered on Cruise’s dramatic physical transformation into the title role, achieved through heavy prosthetics and makeup that originally took six hours to apply each day. Cruise has spoken about working directly with the film’s makeup team to cut that process down to roughly an hour, timing each piece and drilling the routine until it became second nature.

That kind of commitment appears to be resonating with at least part of the critical community. IndieWire’s Anne Thompson was among the most enthusiastic voices, calling the film a brave and gorgeous art film, while Variety contributor Courtney Howard went even further, describing it as “powder keg cinema” and praising Cruise’s performance as a boldly invigorated, tour de force turn, with Ahmed singled out as a standout as well.

Not every reaction has been so glowing. Critic Mike Ryan admitted the film made him want to root for it given how fully Cruise commits to the role, but he found several of its plot choices baffling and the overall experience generally unpleasant. Award Radar’s Joey Magidson was blunter still, calling the film “a mess” and saying it simply wasn’t enjoyable, while others have questioned whether the satire’s stakes ever land with real weight.

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What almost every critic seems to agree on, regardless of which side of the divide they land on, is that ‘Digger’ is unlike anything audiences are expecting from Cruise. That unpredictability is precisely what makes the film such a fascinating gamble heading into the fall movie season, especially with awards pundits watching closely to see how it factors into this year’s Oscar conversation.

‘Digger’ arrives in theaters on October 1 from Warner Bros., landing alongside another one of the studio’s major upcoming releases, ‘Dune: Part Three,’ as part of a packed autumn slate. Whether Cruise’s willingness to disappear into such an unconventional role pays off at the box office or with awards voters remains to be seen, but it has already succeeded in generating exactly the kind of conversation a film like this needs.

With reactions this split, ‘Digger’ is shaping up to be one of the more talked-about theatrical releases of the year, for better or worse.

Do you think Digger will be a hit with audiences despite its polarizing first reactions?

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