What’s It About
Dwayne “THE ROCK” Johnson will portray former MMA/UFC champion Mark Kerr aka “The Smashing Machine” in a story based on the true events surrounding Kerr’s life and rise through the MMA world which was unfortunately derailed by his opioid addiction.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
When I found out The Rock was going to be in a “dramatic” movie again, I rolled my eyes so hard they almost got stuck like that. After watching him punch CGI monsters and crack a dad joke in a thousand forgettable action movies, I sort of forgot that Dwayne Johnson was a real actor. But leave it to director Benny Safdie to say, “Hold on, let me remind you,” and you know what? Mission accomplished. The Smashing Machine drops us into the wild, messy world of late 90s mixed martial arts, back when UFC was basically an underground fight club with cameras. Johnson plays Mark Kerr, a real-life fighter who was huge in the sport but nobody outside that world really knows about. That’s actually perfect for this movie because you’re not sitting there already knowing how everything ends, like you would with a Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson story. Right from the jump, Safdie shows us what this movie’s really about. We are viewing Kerr absolutely obliterating another man in the ring – I mean brutal, wincing, beatdown-type scenarios, while hearing his voice share, all soft and gentle, how much he loves to fight. It’s unsettling in the best way. This gigantic mountain of a man is talking like he is explaining his favorite hobby to your grandma at church. The contrast between the violence and gentleness carries across the entire movie and makes everything work. The story follows Kerr during his peak fighting years of 1997-2000, at which time he was virtually undefeated. He is training with his best friend Mark Coleman, portrayed by an actual UFC fighter, Ryan Bader, who is not a formally-trained actor, but does an excellent job of conveying the energy. When Kerr’s not pounding people into the mat in Japan or America, he’s home in Arizona with his girlfriend Dawn, played by Emily Blunt. And oh man, their relationship is a whole toxic mess. Let me talk about Emily Blunt for a second because she really did something here. She’s playing this rough-around-the-edges woman who’s got her own problems with drinking and clearly can’t save herself, let alone her man. But Blunt doesn’t make Dawn into some trashy stereotype or forgettable girlfriend character. You can see the pain all over her face, and even when she’s being difficult or making things worse, you kinda get why she stays. She loves this big, broken man, and that love is slowly killing both of them. The way Safdie films their home life together had me stressed out, for real. I recall a part where Dawn is in the midst of preparing Mark’s protein shake in the morning, and she has a cigarette dangling from her mouth, and you could just feel the tension building over something that appeared so trivial and silly. Another portion that absolutely makes me hold my breath is when Mark gets angry that Dawn didn’t trim his cactus plant the way he wanted, so he picks up a knife – he literally does – and begins showing her how to trim the plant. Those moments aren’t huge dramatic blowup moments, but they’re mundane arguments that feel dangerous because you can feel the man snap at any moment. It’s like watching a tiger walk a tightrope while juggling knives. The real difference between this and your normal sports movie is how much screen time Safdie had away from the ring. Yes, there is a training montage, set to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” as opposed to an upbeat rap track, and that says everything about the type of movie this is. The fights are raw and hard to watch—every punch sounds like it hurts, every drop of blood is visible. But Safdie cares way more about what happens when Kerr comes home. The big problem dragging Kerr down is his painkiller addiction. He’s shooting up to deal with the damage fighting does to his body, and Dawn’s not exactly helping him stay clean. They’re stuck in this cycle where they’re both drowning and trying to save each other at the same time, which obviously doesn’t work. When Kerr finally loses a fight for the first time in his career, everything starts falling apart faster. Johnson completely disappears into this role, and I mean that literally, the makeup team did such good work that you almost forget you’re watching The Rock. Yet, even more than the bodily transformation, Johnson accurately captures the intricate personality of a man who is essentially a child in a giant’s body. On the one hand, he speaks slow and careful as if he is constantly thinking hard about what he is saying. He is polite to strangers and sweet with friends, while on the other hand becomes this angry, controlling guy at home who has huge reactions to smoothies and plants. Watching Johnson shift between these different versions of Kerr is honestly fascinating. This is easily his best performance since he left WWE, maybe ever. The film is designed and executed in such a way that it’s clear that everything was filmed in the late 90s, which is brilliant. The Safdie Brothers filmed the movie using a range of film cameras that give everything this grainy, homemade video look. The sound mixing is similar to something you’d watch on an old VHS tape that had been recorded off your parent’s TV before the advent of DVRs. One especially absurd moment includes an impressive electric guitar cover of the Japanese national anthem while radiating, for a lack of a better word, “weird 90s energy”. Now let’s be honest, this is not a great film. At times, it can feel like the Safdie Brothers are so adamant about telling us every detail of Kerr’s life, that they lose sight of analyzing why Kerr is Kerr. The toxic relationship with Dawn repeatedly plays out in front of our eyes, and after some time, it feels redundant. I wanted to know more about what made Kerr tick beyond just watching him and Dawn fight about nothing for the hundredth time. The ending also comes kinda quick and feels a bit abrupt, though Safdie does something clever with the final fight that I won’t spoil. And there’s a touching part at the very end about what all this meant to the real Mark Kerr that almost made me tear up. What sticks with me most is how the movie shows that fighting in the ring isn’t really that different from fighting in life. Kerr can control what he does to opponents, but he can’t control himself at home. He can win championships, but he can’t win against his addiction or his anger or his need to have everything just right. That’s the real tragedy here—not that his career falls apart, but that this strong, successful man is completely powerless over the stuff that actually matters. The Smashing Machine won’t blow your mind with originality. You’ve seen stories about athletes struggling with drugs and difficult relationships before. That said, the tough-minded style of Safdie, and two other thrilling performances from Johnson and Blunt, make this worth seeing. It reminds us that, underneath everything, and based on everything we know about him, Dwayne Johnson can access real emotional depth with a chance. If you don’t want to see CGI superhero trash and want to see The Rock act instead flex his biceps, this is for you. It’s heavy, it’s uncomfortable at times, and it definitely earned that drama label. But it’s also proof that Johnson still has it when he wants to take things seriously. Welcome back, actor Dwayne Johnson. We missed you.
OUR RATING – AN ACTUAL 7