Benny Safdie’s “The Smashing Machine,” starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in a redefining career performance as MMA legend Mark Kerr, gives us a compelling yet brief glimpse into Kerr’s life as one of the mixed martial arts fighters of its early days.
The biographical drama from A24 premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in September and won the Silver Lion before its October theatrical release, showcasing Johnson’s dramatic range in ways the audience and fans have not quite seen. Despite his strong performance and Safdie’s devoted directional approach, the movie’s two-and-a-half-hour runtime feels inadequate and does not fully explore the complex layers of Kerr’s life.
Johnson, other than his voice, is unrecognizable under a black wig as he carries the weight of his characters’ demons. He portrays Kerr during his most pivotal years of 1997 to the 2000s, when the man’s career collided with his growing substance abuse addiction. Emily Blunt co-stars as Dawn Staples, Kerr’s girlfriend, and eventual wife, acting with an equally raw performance that helps to anchor the movie’s emotional values.
The film does great work in capturing the violent nature of early UFC competition and the toll it takes on the fighters’ mentalities and bodies. Safdie’s well known camerawork makes a suffocating closeness to the fighting sequences we watch that are uniquely paired with jazz music, rather than a typical aggressive soundtrack that we associate with combat sports films.
“The Smashing Machine” does falter in a couple of categories of course: Its pacing and depth. The film moves through Kerr’s story so quickly that it misses critical elements, making it feel almost underdeveloped. Kerr’s opioid addiction, which is arguably a central tragedy of his career, is only given a surface level treatment with it truly deserves a thorough examination. We as the audience see him struggle, overdose, and enter rehabilitation, but the psychological grip of the addiction and very specific circumstances that come with addiction and led him down that path remain annoyingly gray.
Comparably, the fighter’s professional achievements, which earned him the nickname “The Smashing Machine” and made him one of MMA’s most known and dominant forces, sprinted by without needed context. For the viewers unaware of the early UFC history, the film only gives a little framework for understanding what makes Kerr an exceptional fighter, or why his fighting style revolutionized the sport. Kerr’s techniques, evolution of his perspective, and his mindset receive such little screen time.
The relationship between Kerr and Staples does give us an insight into some of the film’s most emotional scenes, but it also suffers from the limited timeline. The dynamic is clearly toxic, yet somehow deeply codependent; however, the film fails to fully dig into why they remained bound to each other through these repeated cycles of arguing and reconciliation. Blunt and Johnson of course share incredible chemistry in their confrontations, but the more intimate, quiet moments that could highlight their bond were absent.
The movie’s reluctance to embrace the traditional sports movie conventions does prove to be both a strength and a weakness. We see that Safdie deliberately avoids the triumphant buildup of the typical genre. Instead, he creates a space that feels more like “The Raging Bull” rather than “Rocky.” The choice helps make it a more realistic and melancholic portrait that leaves small threads of the narrative dangling.
There are some supporting performances from real-life fighters Ryan Bader and Mark Coleman and Bas Rutten as himself to add to the authenticity, though the relationships also feel unexplored. Kerr’s friendship with Coleman and his training with Rutten both appear as significant people in his life yet are only shallow investigation.
Maceo Bishop does a great job in his cinematography to maintain Safdie’s close-up intensity as the jazz score by Nala Sinephro distinguishes the film from the normal fight movies. The technical elements help to create an intriguing aesthetic that elevates the material, even when the script itself does not always deliver.
The film ends with a finale that reveals Kerr and Staples married 11 days after his huge loss at the 2000 Pride Grand Prix, explaining how he retired in 2009 and he remains widely unknown despite him being a pioneer of modern MMA. While they are presented as text, it highlights what the movie needed more time.
“The Smashing Machine” succeeds as a showcase for Johnson’s dramatic capabilities and as an unusual sports biopic that does not romanticize its subject. The film is worth watching for the acting and approaches to the athletic glory, and personal collapses that can come with it.