Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Benny Safdie
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Lyndsey Gavin, Oleksandr Usyk, Ryan Bader, Satoshi Ishii, Bas Rutten
Sports biopics have always come up against one major problem, that of the target audience already knowing the outcome. As someone who previously thought UFC stood for Uxminster Football Club, I'm probably not the target audience for a biopic of MMA fighter Mark Kerr (isn't he your man from Simple Minds?). As such, I had no idea how The Smashing Machine might end, which meant I probably enjoyed it a little more than MMA devotees might.
Written and directed by Benny Safdie in his first solo outing (his brother Josh has also made a sports biopic, Marty Supreme), The Smashing Machine takes its title from the nickname given to Kerr, a hulking former wrestler turned Mixed Martial Artist in the '90s, long before that sport was popular enough to be staged on the White House lawn. He's ironically played by Dwayne Johnson, who was making the sort of money in wrestling that Kerr could only dream of in that era.
Johnson is caked in make-up that gives him the appearance of a Dick Tracy villain, but his performance works his way through the showy prosthetics and grips you from the off. Johnson has long been a very good movie star who stars in very bad movies, but here he proves himself a genuinely compelling "actor" in a low-key drama that couldn't be further from his usual line of bombastic blockbusters.
Johnson plays Kerr as a gentle giant who moves in such a way as to suggest he's permanently wary of accidentally treading on a small child. In the opening scene we see Kerr pummel an opponent's face before immediately expressing genuine concern that he might have badly injured the other fighter. This comradeship between fighters becomes the film's most interesting element. When a woman asks Kerr if the fighters really hate each other, he's quick to shut down such a suggestion. Kerr's best friend is fellow fighter Mark Coleman (current MMA fighter Ryan Bader), and their sport sets them on a potentially fraught face-off along the lines of the estranged brothers in the fictional MMA movie Warrior. For a non-professional actor, Bader is impressive, and there's a genuine buddy chemistry between himself and Johnson. That both performers have taken these physical blows for real lends an authenticity that cuts through the heavy make-up.
Less compelling is Kerr's relationship with his girlfriend Dawn (Emily Blunt). Things become strained when Dawn's presence ringside causes Kerr to lose focus and suffer the first loss of his career. Kerr subsequently spirals into painkiller addiction, leading to a stint in rehab. He emerges clean but Dawn continues her hard-partying ways, threatening to knock him off the wagon once again. Any initial threat of a domestic violence storyline is dismissed early on as the film makes it clear that this isn't Raging Bull and Kerr is a gentleman who takes his anger out on furnishings rather than women. Blunt does her best to make something of a woman who might easily be dismissed as a trashy trophy wife, all black bras under white blouses, and she sells the jealousy Dawn feels towards her boyfriend's male colleagues through her facial expressions. But the arguments between Kerr and Dawn are of the sort we've witnessed scores of times already in the many movies about obsessed men and their other halves.
The Smashing Machine doesn't have much of an interest in the mechanics of MMA, and Safdie shoots the fights with a distanced disinterest, the camera often lingering outside the ring rather than finding the best angle to capture a punishing blow. He's far more interested in Kerr's life outside the ring, but this approach works against the film's final act, which sees Kerr work his way through a knockout tournament towards a potential title-decider against his buddy Coleman. Safdie wants his fistful of opioids and eat it, trying to avoid sports biopic clichés while also setting up the sort of expected drama such movies thrive on. The Smashing Machine will prove engaging to fans of both indie filmmaking and MMA, but both groups will be left wanting a few more rounds of action.
The Smashing Machine is in UK/ROI cinemas from October 3rd.
