The Smashing Machine feels like a lightweight bout before the main event
Over the past ten years, I’ve asked and been asked a recurring question when a conversation turns to movies: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is a good actor, so why isn’t he choosing better projects? For a moment, let’s set aside the very entertaining Jumanji reboot, the fantastic Fast Five, and the Moana phenomenon, because the rest of his filmography between 2014-2025 is abysmal at worst, forgettable at best. Johnson has raked in enough dough and created enough global popularity and goodwill to justify his choices. However, ask any of Johnson’s biggest fans (and some of his detractors) and they’ll tell you he maintains an undiscovered level to his acting abilities, the sort of emotional range he inched toward in 2004’s Walking Tall remake, Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales, and even Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain. Instead, Johnson has returned to lackluster, CGI-laden IP projects over and over again, resulting in diminishing returns. The combined trio of critical and box office disasters Black Adam, Fast X, and Red One were the final straw, and Johnson now appears to be shifting gears. The Smashing Machine is an impressive and appropriate first step in Johnson’s new career path, though the film lacks invention and purpose.
The Smashing Machine is directed by Benny Safdie (half of the Safdie brothers, directors of Good Time and Uncut Gems) and is based on the documentary The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr. The film follows wrestler and mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) at the pinnacle of his wrestling and MMA career, between 1997-2000, when substance abuse and his first losses began to take a toll on his mental health, his relationship with then girlfriend Dawn Staples (Emily Blunt), and his fighting career. Lending emotional support and training, but also actively competing, is Kerr’s longtime friend Mark Coleman (MMA fighter Ryan Bader), who is the unexpected heart and soul of the film. The fights are brutal and well-choreographed, and the performances are strong across the board. Although seeing Blunt take on another nagging partner role (see Oppenheimer) is disappointing, she makes the most of her one-dimensional character. Meanwhile, Kerr is the perfect role for Johnson’s “take me seriously” acting quest. Johnson can utilize his physical familiarity with the wrestling world while honing his emotional craft, effectively portraying a character with deep-seeded insecurities. Johnson’s performance is raw and vulnerable, physically imposing, and absolutely captivating.
Safdie’s gritty, documentary-style approach to the sports film genre has been seen before in The Wrestler, Warrior, and The Way Back (maybe it’s a “W” sports film title trend). The sense of realism adds weight to each punch to the face and knee to the head, and emphasizes the great job the makeup team did in transforming Johnson into Kerr. But, the realism also adds to the film’s predictability and lackluster narrative –the style is working as a tool to elicit a reaction during the fights in the ring and between Kerr and Staples. It looks real, therefore it should feel real. The grit only carries the emotion so far, and the fights (professional and domestic) never amount to much. The Smashing Machine wants to be introspective, inviting us with its jazzy score and unglamorous aesthetic to sympathize with the characters, but without more context to their origins and motivations, there’s not much we can latch onto.
Not quite an underdog story, nor a crowd-pleaser, the film seems most intrigued by Kerr’s “loser” mentality and the changes that MMA has undergone between the late 1990s and today. Even as the movie makes clear that Kerr, and Coleman, were important influences on shaping the sport and expanding its popularity internationally, Safdie’s film prefers to bask in the torment and solitude of its subjects. Looking up Kerr’s career fights, I learned that he lost the majority of his final bouts after 2000, including his last five, but we see none of that. The film depicts the turning point in Kerr’s career, but neither his ascent nor his decline. Whatever the film is trying to say, I’m just excited for Johnson. Oscar nomination or no Oscar nomination, this performance is a strong start, perhaps even another turning point.
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The Smashing Machine opens in theaters on Friday, Oct. 3rd.
