Dwayne Johnson stars in ‘The Smashing Machine’. Picture: A24.
Opening in theaters October 3 is ‘The Smashing Machine,’ directed by Benny Safdie and starring Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Ryan Bader, Bas Rutten, Oleksandr Usyk, and Satoshi Ishii.
“The unforgettable true story of a UFC legend.”
Launch Date: Oct 3, 2025
Run Time: 2 hr 3 min
Price range: $40,000,000
Associated Article: Dwayne Johnson and Director Benny Safdie Teaming Up for ‘Lizard Music’
Preliminary Ideas
Dwayne Johnson in ‘The Smashing Machine’. Picture: A24.
Not almost as pleasurably anxiety-inducing as his earlier movies with brother Josh, Benny Safdie’s solo directing debut finds the filmmaker enabling star Dwayne Johnson’s push into the realm of ‘critical actor’ – and on that degree, ‘The Smashing Machine’ is a hit. The Rock rises to the event right here together with his measured, compelling, and complicated portrayal of real-life UFC fighter Mark Kerr, displaying vulnerability and humanity that he has largely not explored in his action-heavy resume up to now.
As a movie general, ‘The Smashing Machine’ – based mostly extensively on the 2002 HBO documentary of the identical title – is much less efficient. It lacks context for Kerr’s story, which can go away viewers not aware of the UFC or MMA bewildered, and it’s episodic in nature, weaving the highs and lows of Kerr’s profession from 1997 to 2000 round his fraught, co-dependent relationship with girlfriend (and eventual spouse, then ex-wife) Daybreak Staples (Emily Blunt). Take away Johnson’s absorbing efficiency, and it’s a regular sports activities biopic with a weirdly muted vitality.
Story and Course
(L to R) Director Benny Safdie and Dwayne Johnson and on the set of ‘The Smashing Machine’. Picture: A24.
Safdie appears to take a whole lot of incidents and even strains of dialogue from ‘The Smashing Machine: The Life and Instances of Excessive Fighter Mark Kerr,’ the HBO documentary, and his tendency to movie in a cinema-verité model brings this movie even nearer aesthetically to the 2002 doc. The principle distinction, after all, is that this model options Dwayne Johnson as Kerr, and whereas we don’t get a whole lot of backstory on both him or his chosen subject, we’re however drawn into his battle.
Kerr fights on a number of fronts even when he’s not within the ring. He’s a soft-spoken, light, sort man with a susceptible heart – he gained’t even go on sure amusement park rides as a result of they’ll damage his ‘tummy’ – but he’s additionally possessed of a deep inside rage that can explode out of nowhere and lead to a bed room door smashed to splinters on the ground. He doesn’t know how one can deal with defeat as a result of he’s ‘by no means misplaced,’ even saying so in an interview earlier than a match in Japan (the place he incessantly fought). But that is additionally a person who grudgingly realizes that he can’t win on a regular basis, a realization borne out within the movie’s ultimate scenes.
Opioids and Daybreak are what Kerr battles essentially the most, the previous for the ache and put on of his occupation and the latter for the ache and put on of co-dependency. In a number of situations, Daybreak comes out into their front room to seek out him sitting in a stupor, staring on the TV. She’s no angel herself on the subject of substances, with Kerr shocked late within the movie when she refuses to keep away from the goodies herself in help of his emergence from rehab. ‘You’re no enjoyable anymore!’ she shrieks at him with nearly deliberate cruelty, regardless of Kerr’s earlier descent into habit being nothing lower than harrowing.
(L to R) Emily Blunt, Dwayne Johnson and director Benny Safdie on the set of ‘The Smashing Machine’. Picture: A24.
The brawls contained in the ring are much less emotionally fraught however extra bodily brutal. Boxing stands out as the ‘candy science,’ however UFC combating is frankly nothing lower than barbaric. But the fighters themselves are respectful to one another outdoors the ring, even buddies, which gives its personal touching moments.
Safdie shoots all this, as talked about earlier, in a considerably indifferent documentary model, however the compilation of incidents from Kerr’s life and profession by no means tackle an natural momentum of their very own. Which may be Safdie partially making an attempt to keep away from the standard rise-fall-return of most sports activities biopics (and biopics normally), which is commendable. However he nonetheless can’t keep away from quite a few the tropes and the movie nearly fights itself, making an attempt to indicate a documentary restraint but not fairly reaching any actual emotional heights – besides in Johnson’s uncooked efficiency.
Solid and Performances
(L to R) Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt star in ‘The Smashing Machine’. Picture: A24.
‘Uncooked’ is de facto the proper phrase for Dwayne Johnson’s efficiency (which does call to mind the Safdies’ reinvention of Adam Sandler in ‘Uncut Gems’), and followers could also be unnerved to see him sobbing at a number of factors within the movie. Carrying prosthetics to bury himself extra within the function, Johnson visibly digs deep and delivers, even when the viewer is conscious that he’s additionally interested by his award-season run.
Emily Blunt’s Daybreak Staples is a problematic and never particularly sympathetic character; whereas Blunt throws herself into the half (their largest struggle, climaxing in a rest room, is intense and even scary), the character is troublesome as a result of she’s both subservient to Kerr or selfishly manipulative towards him. Daybreak is each exasperating and the standard ‘girlfriend/spouse’ we see in sports activities biopics, however the film by no means fairly burrows beneath her pores and skin.
A lot of the remainder of the movie – consistent with Safdie’s seeming want to copy as a lot of the documentary as doable – is forged with actual folks from the world of MMA and UFC taking part in both themselves or fictionalized variations of different actual folks. Ryan Bader particularly is kind of good as Kerr’s former good friend Mark Coleman, bringing sensitivity, decency, and honesty to a personality whose loyalty Kerr always exams.
Ultimate Ideas
Dwayne Johnson stars in ‘The Smashing Machine’. Picture: A24.
As we mentioned on the prime of this evaluation, the primary focus of ‘The Smashing Machine’ – Dwayne Johnson’s transformative efficiency – is what works greatest. Which is an efficient factor, each for him and the film, though little doubt debates will rage over whether or not it is a shameless bid for awards recognition from an actor whose chops – like these of fellow wrestlers-turned-actors John Cena and Dave Bautista – haven’t all the time been taken significantly.
Nonetheless, Johnson does step up, though in the long run ‘The Smashing Machine’ itself is serviceable, often fascinating, and intermittently shifting. We’re undecided what the movie says in the long run: Mark Kerr was a UFC and MMA pioneer earlier than they grew to become cultural behemoths, and in a way he was handed by because of this. However since that has been chronicled already in a documentary, does a story model have a degree? That’s the barrier ‘The Smashing Machine’ struggles to interrupt by.
‘The Smashing Machine’ receives a rating of 75 out of 100.
(L to R) Director Benny Safdie, Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson on the set of ‘The Smashing Machine’. Picture: A24.
What’s the plot of ‘The Smashing Machine’?
Legendary blended martial arts and UFC fighter Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) battles habit, accidents, and different challenges to his profession, whereas additionally entwined in a dysfunctional relationship together with his girlfriend Daybreak Staples (Emily Blunt).
Who’s within the forged of ‘The Smashing Machine’?
Dwayne Johnson as Mark Kerr
Emily Blunt as Daybreak Staples
Ryan Bader as Mark Coleman
Bas Rutten as himself
Oleksandr Usyk as Igor Vovchanchyn
Lyndsey Gavin as Elizabeth Coleman
Satoshi Ishii as Enson Inoue
Dwayne Johnson stars in ‘The Smashing Machine’. Picture: A24.