The Rock takes on a new kind of role—and a pounding—in this bruising sports drama about a real-life “extreme fighter”
The Smashing Machine
Starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt
Directed by Benny Safdie
Rated R
In theaters Friday, Oct. 3
The Rock’s latest role finds him taking a beating—and giving even more of them out—in this gritty drama about real-life mixed martial arts “extreme” fighter Mark Kerr, one of the pioneering superstars of the hybrid wrestling sport some 25 years ago.
As fans of extreme fighting know, MMA is a combo platter of combative styles from around the world, from judo and jiu-jitsu to boxing and street fighting. There’s a lot of grappling, eye gouging, neck choking, head kicking and fist pummeling. Sometimes the fights are staged in “cages.” The events of the film take place between 1997 and 2000, when Kerr was a rising star in the MMA global arena, especially in Japan. It’s kinda like Rocky, with saki!
Johnson—who was himself a pro wrestler known as the Rock before beginning his acting career—immerses himself in the role, making an almost phenomenal transformation into Kerr by using multiple facial prosthetics. The muscles and sculpted body look familiar, but you sometimes have to keep reminding yourself that it’s really the Rock in there, underneath the false nose, cheekbones, forehead and ears. It’s more than a few movie miles from the upbeat, popcorn-y roles Johnson became known for in pumped-up, action-adventure romps like Jumanji, Skyscraper, the Fast and Furious franchise and San Andreas, or animated family fare like Moana, Hercules or DC League of Super Pets.
Although we see plenty of Johnson’s character doing his thing in the ring—the brutal fight scenes are very convincing—we also watch Kerr in psychological battles with himself and with his girlfriend, Dawn (Emily Blunt). We see how the fighters may try to beat each other’s brains out, but they can be friends—even besties—when the show’s over. An actual former MMA fighter, Ryan Bader, has an integral supporting role as Kerr’s good buddy Mark Coleman, who’s also his direct competitor.
Eventually, Kerr becomes dependent on opioids and painkillers, and there’s little wonder why. He is indeed a human smashing machine; he even smashes a door to splinters in a burst of anger. All that smashing takes a toll on his body. But he loves it, loves the winning, loves soaking up the cheers of the crowd. “It’s orgasmic,” he says. “The highest of highs.”
For all its brawn and brawl, the movie’s a bit lite on the drama. There’s not a lot of conflict, or emotional highs and lows, or surprises, in Kerr’s fight-club sphere. We’re never told about his prior life, as a high school wrestler in Iowa, or how worked his way up into the pros. It’s not so much a biopic as a window on a compressed period, much like the 2002 documentary about Kerr (from which this movie takes its title). Director Benny Safdie, whose previous films include the edgy Good Times and Uncut Gems, keeps the edges messy, showing us the sweaty, unglamorous and often bloody world of “outlaw” wrestling, where combatants keep fighting because they need the money, they’re addicted to it…and they can’t really do anything else.
The movie overlays some highly appropriate music onto its scenes. It’s hard to miss the messaging when we watch Kerr training to the tune of Elvis singing Sinatra’s “My Way” (and its line about “But through it all / When there was doubt / I ate it up and spit it out”). Bruce Springsteen’s “Jungle Land” orchestrates a particularly stressful, combustive interlude between Kerr and Dawn. And it’s quite appropriate that it all ends with the Alan Parsons Project and “Limelight,” about how the limelight, the spotlight, was “all I ever wanted since it all began / Shining on me, telling the world who I am.”
The Smashing Machine shows the who-I-am about an ultimate fighter who ultimately finds himself on the other side of the spotlight. But more impressively, it also shows how Dwayne Johnson has found the other side of the showbiz coin, as a serious actor in a substantial role, a smashing success at playing a real person instead of exaggerated, often cartoonish caricatures.
—Neil Pond
The Media Tourist 