‘The Smashing Machine’ Review

With sports movies, especially combat sports movies, it can go one of two ways. It can either be a rah-rah inspirational underdog story à la ‘Rocky’, or a gritty character study examining the physical and psychological toll of the sport, like ‘Raging Bull’ or ‘The Wrestler’. ‘The Smashing Machine’, the story of Mark Kerr, is predominantly the latter as it depicts the tumultuous domestic life of an early MMA athlete, but it also dabbles in the former as it shows multiple elimination tournaments with Mark Kerr and his good friend Mark Coleman. With incredible performances and brilliant direction, ‘The Smashing Machine’ ultimately struggles with this lack of commitment to one form or another, resulting in a well crafted film that neither satisfies nor subverts its genre tropes in any meaningful way.

‘The Smashing Machine’ begins with a virtuoso sequence, opening with grainy footage, as if we’re watching an old VHS tape, of Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) entering the ring for his professional fighting debut. After winning this first fight, the style transitions to the cleaner look that will persist for the remainder of the film, and over top of the diegetic noise of Kerr’s fights, we get voiceover of Kerr explaining the beauty of the sport and the joys of winning. We follow Mark Kerr’s personal and professional struggles between 1997-2000 as he competes in multiple MMA circuits as the nascent sport is struggling to gain a foothold in the global entertainment ecosystem.

As Mark Kerr, Dwayne Johnson does something he has done very little of since 2013’s ‘Pain & Gain’: acting. His performance is layered and powerful, inverting his public persona as The Rock, the mean-mugging badass who speaks only in contrived one liners and motivational platitudes, to depict a flawed muscleman who radiates love for his sport and all of his co-competitors while struggling with addiction and sudden spurts of violent anger. As Kerr, Johnson plays a real human being who plays a character for cameras and fans, and also to his loved ones, as he puts on a front to show that he’s not really addicted to opiates. When he is finally called out, it’s heartbreaking as we watch this giant of a man sob uncontrollably, forced to confront not only his addiction, but the reality that people have been seeing through him all along.

Johnson’s performance is enhanced by Benny Safdie’s intimate direction, filming as he does to make the bulk of the domestic drama feel like a home video, revealing small moments of intimacy that fleshes out Kerr’s inner life even as he resists saying what he’s really thinking and feeling. In addition to the direction, the music by Nala Sinephro is surprising and affecting, leaning heavily on percussion during fight scenes, but then opting for wistful horns during domestic scenes, as if we’re all sharing a nostalgic memory of the good old days.

Unfortunately, the story itself doesn’t offer anything new to the genre. Addiction issues, relationship turmoil, the physical toll of a violent sport – all of these dynamics have been staples of the sports movie genre for decades. The narrative struggles with a lack of set up and pay off, as we move simply from event to event in Kerr’s life through the ups, downs, and ups of his career as well as his relationship with Emily Blunt’s Dawn. Mark and Dawn’s relationship is a specific kind of toxic, but since we never really see them living as a happy couple, the increasing toxicity is more exhausting than insightful.

Further, the movie doesn’t seem to know what kind of movie it wants to be. The narrative feels aimless, with somehow too much and too little of actual substance happening, undercutting any attempt at narrative satisfaction. There is no catharsis, but neither is there any kind of thought provoking anticlimax. By telling the story of a runner-up in the early days of a sport that will eventually become a multibillion dollar entertainment industry, ‘The Smashing Machine’ seems to want to be an MMA-ified ‘Inside Lleweyn Davis’, but there is so much going on that detracts from the tragedy and humor that was so memorably evoked in that earlier film. If ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ featured Bob Dylan as the protagonist’s best friend, and included his first star-making performance, then the tone and messaging would be too confused to be effective, and that’s exactly what happens here.

In its lack of focus, ‘The Smashing Machine’ seems unable to choose a single thing that it wants to be about and the resulting film struggles under this burden, ultimately unable to create a good, original story in spite of the fantastic filmmaking craft evident throughout.

The Smashing Machine
Rated R for language and some drug abuse.
Running Time: 2 hours and 3 minutes

Director Benny Safdie
Writers Benny Safdie
Stars Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Ryan Bader, Bas Rutten, Oleksandr Usyk
Rating R
Running Time 123 Minutes
Genres Biography, Drama, Sports