The hype surrounding The Smashing Machine has been astronomical and for good motive. It’s Benny Safdie’s first solo directorial effort after working together with his brother Josh on acclaimed hits like Good Time and Uncut Gems. Rumors of an enormous finances make it presumably one of the costly movies A24 has ever made because it makes a push for larger movies generally. And it’s Dwayne Johnson’s massive Oscar car, the field workplace large’s first stab at a very severe position.
To get within the headspace of former UFC fighter Mark Kerr, Johnson has remodeled and spoken usually about how tapping into this position introduced him to a susceptible state he hasn’t but explored in his profession. The large query out of the movie’s Venice premiere was, does all of it work? The reply is not any.
The Smashing Machine Is Too Sedate To Be Thrilling
As a sports activities biopic, The Smashing Machine is unconventional in some methods. It opts not for an expansive have a look at Kerr’s total life, however focuses as an alternative on the three years — from 1997 to 2000 — the place habit virtually ruined Kerr’s life and the fighter had an abroad gig in a Japanese league referred to as Pleasure. Nonetheless, Safdie, who additionally wrote the script, can’t assist however fall into a few of the style’s trappings, with coaching montages and extra used to middling impact.
To his credit score, Johnson’s efficiency is completely nice, although it is definitely not revelatory. The thought of casting the world’s most well-known wrestler-turned-actor within the position of Kerr is arguably extra fascinating than the efficiency or the movie itself. That stated, it’s Johnson’s greatest position up to now, giving the actor an opportunity to chew into meaty materials that he has in any other case prevented via a lot of his profession.
Blunt is within the position of the thankless, underdeveloped love curiosity, however she actually shines as Daybreak, Kerr’s eventual spouse. In one of many movie’s home combat scenes (that are extra thrilling than something that takes place within the ring), Daybreak shouts at Mark that he “doesn’t know her.” We don’t actually know her, both — at the very least not on any form of intimate stage past her relationship with the star of the present. Nonetheless, Blunt imbues Daybreak with a way of humanity that makes her stand out, flaws and all.
Safdie’s route provides a layer of intimacy that his script doesn’t, and it definitely evokes previous collaborations together with his brother, however there is a stagnancy to the digicam that provides The Smashing Machine an total lack of power, even throughout its most brutal moments. This all builds to an anticlimactic conclusion that, whereas presumably true to actual occasions, nonetheless feels underwhelming.
Beneath all these flaws lies an excellent movie. It is not that The Smashing Machine is even unhealthy. It is simply that it falls so in need of its potential and has a startling lack of power for a movie about males beating one another mindless. Its greatest moments aren’t within the octagon — they’re within the quiet moments when Johnson’s Kerr is speaking to an interviewer backstage or when Daybreak and Mark are exchanging barbs in between affections of their cozy Arizona residence.
The most effective sports activities biopics are about overcoming near-insurmountable odds, and Kerr definitely did that point and time once more. Johnson, too, has finished the identical, transitioning from a wrestling star to a severe actor. However it’s clear that to go additional, he might have higher materials to transcend. On the finish of the day, The Smashing Machine nonetheless reverts to familiarity reasonably than pushing the needle, and it is clear that everybody concerned can do higher.
The Smashing Machine screened on the 2025 Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition. A24 will launch the movie in theaters on October 3.
The Smashing Machine
4/10
- Launch Date
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October 3, 2025
- Runtime
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123 minutes
- Director
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Benny Safdie
- Writers
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Benny Safdie
- Producers
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Beau Flynn, David Koplan, Dwayne Johnson, Dany Garcia, Hiram Garcia