Digger review: Tom Cruises laugh-free turd will have audiences stampeding out

ZERO STARS.Running time: 128 minutes.

Rated R (pervasive language).In theaters Oct.

2.Movie? Impossible.Tom Cruise’s latest film, “Digger” — the actor’s first real stinker in nearly 10 years — really is a rage-inducing sit.Not because of the environmental issues it depicts in such a dated and obvious way, but due to a pair of enormous egos being blinded to their baby’s badness.  You can tell that Cruise, who’s clearly gotten high on all the “last real movie star” headlines, and director Alejandro González Iñárritu of “Birdman” and “The Revenant” think their new film is urgent.

And in a way, it is.Audiences will urgently want to leave after the first five minutes.That’s surprising, since “Digger” has all the makings of a prestige hit: An A-list star covering his handsome face in ugly prosthetics, a big important topic and an auteur who’s won two best director Oscars.

Yet if anything, those dutifully checked boxes turn out to be pitfalls.Because what this sorry satire about a Texas oil tycoon and a US president with “cancer of the a–hole” lacks is a single funny joke or even half-believable moment. There’s plenty of obnoxious shouting in hokey Southern accents in this insufferable slog, though, and about a hundred indistinguishable grayscale cast members, all of whom look like Jacob Marley’s ghost.

I didn’t walk out worried for the planet, however I was gravely concerned for a couple of careers.“Digger” marks the first time Cruise has played an original title character (“Jack Reacher”’s a novel) since 1996’s “Jerry Maguire.” That marquee choice leads us to believe that Digger Rockwell, the “yee haw!” oil barron, should be a larger-than-life figure destined for classic status.Too bad he’s a silly and annoying sidekick who’s given too much screentime.Digger’s a shoot first, ask questions later kind of guy.

But he shoots himself in the foot when his advisers warn him that there is a gro...