Production company A24’s latest film, “The Smashing Machine”, hit theaters on Oct. 3, featuring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in a refreshingly nuanced dramatic role. He portrays Mark Kerr, a character based on the retired American mixed martial artist known as “The Smashing Machine.”
Kerr is called this for the way he annihilated opponents in the early days of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and Pride. Like the nickname itself, the title becomes a bitter irony.
Set in the early 2000s mixed martial arts (MMA) scene, “The Smashing Machine” follows Kerr as he navigates the early days of the UFC, an unhealthy relationship with his girlfriend Dawn Staples (Emily Blunt), the temptation of painkillers and a toxic cycle of self-sabotage. The film is most climactic when Kerr is just on the edge of breaking, allowing Johnson to teeter on the edge of both internal and external breakdown.
Johnson plays Kerr with startling restraint and intensity, channeling a kind of wounded titan energy that’s a compelling subversion of his usual blockbuster hero archetype. Behind transformative prosthetics and a hulking yet fragile demeanor, Johnson gives what might be the best performance of his career.
His portrayal of Kerr is a man built to destroy, undone by the quiet moments between fights, when the adrenaline drains and the silence sets in.
This is American filmmaker and actor Benny Safdie’s first solo directorial effort following his creative split from his brother Josh Safdie, with whom he produced and wrote “Good Time” in 2017 and “Uncut Gems” in 2019. Safdie approaches this material with a signature, yet more understated realism that exacerbates Kerr’s internal conflicts through textured, handheld 16mm cinematography, which stands as the highlight of the film.
Everything one could want Safdie to explore from Kerr’s story exists in the film: His addiction, masculine fragility, the commodification of pain and the isolation of celebrity. Yet Safdie’s focus often wanders.
He juggles too many ideas, subverting major storylines until they reemerge several scenes too late, resulting in a movie that feels both too big and too narrow. In a hapless effort to subvert the conventions of the sports drama, he struggles to consistently challenge Kerr in novel and compelling ways to the point of grating repetition.
Blunt, as Kerr’s girlfriend Dawn Staples, delivers a committed but underwritten performance. She exists mostly to react –crying, pleading, or offering pained smiles as Kerr spirals further into addiction.
It’s a disappointingly one-note role, leaning on clichés of the “suffering partner” rather than the complexities Blunt could easily have handled. When compared to Johnson’s emotional excavation, her performance feels like a remnant from the more conventional sports drama that Safdie seems so intent on subverting.
“The Smashing Machine” opened to strong festival buzz but stumbled at the box office, failing to connect with the mainstream audience Johnson usually commands. Yet, the film may mark a turning point for him. Gone is the indestructible persona of “Fast & Furious” and “Black Adam” and here stands a more fragile, nuanced and complex actor.
Benny Safdie’s solo debut doesn’t quite land every punch. It is riveting in its strongest moments and a slog at its worst. But it’s a worthwhile watch, caught somewhere between a subversive commentary on the classic sports movie and a straight rendition.
“The Smashing Machine”, like its subject, is a messy but undeniably powerful project with a lot to offer audiences. 6/10
