THE SMASHING MACHINE Review: Dwayne Johnson Punches Up The Drama With Gravitas Aplenty
A24’s The Smashing Machine brings a peculiar crop of screen and sport talents together for a deservedly signature performance by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The result is a raw, compelling look at the life of Mark Kerr, a troubled athlete during a three year period in which he climbed the Pride ladder in Japan by the turn of the century, coping with an opioid addiction that not only nearly ended his career, but also tested the probity of his relationship with girlfriend Dawn, played excellently by Emily Blunt, as well as his temerity and ability to endure the center-ring and backroom hardships of UFC fighting.
To this, writer/director Benny Safdie’s adaptational work of John Hyams’ 2002 HBO documentary on Kerr’s life on both sides of the ring is an exceptional turn for a different side of Johnson whose blockbuster-laden career is finally en route to a creative pivot that earns him the chance to be a little more than the big screen muscle fans know him as. Additionally, together with Blunt, the two have shared plenty of space with each other in their careers for a sui generis approach to their work. Theirs is a gripping illustration of a relationship no different than any with its highs and lows, albeit one that’s burdened by demons each their own to the point where things almost turn tragic.
The cast bolsters with an interesting mix of actors and professional fighters that lend authenticity to the film’s biopictoral fight flick aesthetics, which also discern an interesting paradigm between Johnson’s performance the stubborn and often vulnerable Kerr, and that of Kerr’s friend and trainer Mark Coleman, played by MMA fighter and RIZIN proponent, Ryan Bader. It’s here where we see that Coleman is more than just filler in Safdie’s cinematic telling of Kerr’s life, whether it was through training and rehab to his closeness with him and Staples, to Coleman’s own career being a highlight within the film juxtaposed to Kerr’s unfolding.
Former MMA champ Bas Rutten channels himself amply in a supporting capacity as a core figure in Kerr’s life during the heyday of the UFC, in addition to MMA commentator and oft-actor Stephen Quadros who cameos in the film’s second half. One other point of interest for me, personally, was the casting of Takao Osawa who portrays one of the officials for the Pride championships in Japan. Osawa hismelf has A-list status in his region today and that he gets a few moments in with our main star in an international drama is something of a feat more people should be discussing, especially anyone who’s been following Osawa from films like Aragami and Goemon to the Kingdom and The Silent Service films.
Moreover, Safdie’s veritable combination of 16mm, 70mm and VHS cinematography is just one of the outstanding characteristics of The Smashing Machine, with another being the film’s fight sequences, coordinated by Greg Rementer. The camerawork is superb, as is the fight design with a great deal of the choreography aimed at highlighting the brutal and punishing effect of fists and knees hitting the body, accentuated by Johnson’s natural ability to move, as well as the film’s bone-crunching folely artistry. These are all intensifiers that anchor the story’s chronicling of Kerr’s drug use and the turmoil that followed in his private and professional life.
Fans of films like Warrior, The Wrestler and The Iron Claw will certainly appeal to what Safdie now proffers to cinephiles having scored big in recent memory co-directing films such as Good Time and Uncut Gems with sibling co-helmer Josh Safdie. I was especially fond of the soundtrack with singers and bands like Frank Sinatra, Lil’ Suzy, Sugar Ray, and Rod Stewart on the menu for a film intended on appealing to my sensibilities as someone who once followed wrestling just enough to smell “what The Rock is cookin'”.
On that note, it’s great to see Johnson is still in the kitchen, still cooking while stirring up something different in his latest career milestone, unmet box office expectations notwithstanding. The Smashing Machine is an acquired taste for those with more preferential appetites depending on who you are as a viewer. Nonetheless, it’s a watchable and rewarding tale that affirms life in all its tribulations, and the kind of redeeming and spirited triumph that remains, win or lose.
The Smashing Machine is available in theaters from A24.
