The Smashing Machine Isn’t the Rock Acting Challenge We Were Led to Believe

This post contains spoilers for The Smashing Machine.

Early in The Smashing Machine, a reporter tries to pry an answer out of Mark Kerr, the hulking ultimate fighting champ portrayed by Dwayne Johnson. The reporter wants to know how Kerr will handle losing a match, but Kerr finds the question utterly bewildering.

Johnson furrows his brow as best as he can, which–like his nose–has been covered with prosthetics to help him better resemble the real Mark Kerr. The effects work in that regard, as Johnson does look like Kerr, who appears as himself and in photos at the end of the film, and not so much like himself. That is, until he flashes that million-dollar smile as Kerr tries to answer the reporter’s question.

The sudden reappearance of Dwayne Johnson’s smile in particular and the interview scene in general belies the awards buzz that has surrounded reports of an unrecognizable performance in The Smashing Machine. Directed by Benny Safdie, The Smashing Machine tells the true story of Kerr, a pioneer in the sport of Ultimate Fighting and of his tumultuous relationship with his girlfriend Dawn Staples (portrayed by Emily Blunt). The Smashing Machine is a harsher, more brutal story than those that usually attract Johnson’s attention, with none of the glossy safeness that marks San Andreas, Rampage, or even his Fast & Furious entries.

It’s clear that Johnson wants to give himself over to an exciting director, and Safdie is a smart choice. In addition to compelling acting turns in Oppenheimer and Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret?, Safdie has co-directed two interesting movies with his brother Josh, Good Time and Uncut Gems. The Smashing Machine is Benny Safdie’s solo debut (Josh’s first outing on his own is Marty Supreme, a very different type of sport biopic, coming later this year), which means the time is right for Johnson to make his move toward respectability.

Yet, beyond the visible beating that Kerr takes and hand-held verité style employed by Safdie, The Smashing Machine doesn’t really challenge Johnson at all. Here are the two defining features of Mark Kerr: 1) he’s massive, a point underscored every time he’s sitting in an airplane from Japan or shoved next to Dawn in a sports car; 2) he’s friendly, so much so that he even checks in on the health of guys whose faces he just caved in.

Johnson has been playing big nice guys for as long as he’s been on our screens. Even if the Rock or Luke Hobbs are heels and antagonists on a narrative level, Johnson deploys his pure charisma to make sure we’re on his side. He always wants us viewers to like him, no matter if he’s the duplicitous demigod Maui in Moana or if he’s changing the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe in Black Adam. Mark Kerr is no different.

Even if Johnson wanted to go deeper into character work, Kerr doesn’t give him any opportunities to do so. Take the aforementioned interview scene. Kerr doesn’t know how to answer the journalist’s question about what happens if he loses, in part, because he hasn’t lost a match at that point. But he also doesn’t know how to answer the question because he refuses to even think about what losing would be like. “I don’t even let those things into my mind,” a smiling Kerr tells the reporter.

Given the high stakes of his profession, Kerr’s reluctance to consider loss makes sense. But it doesn’t make for a compelling character. Kerr explicitly has no interiority for Johnson to explore, no matter how often The Smashing Machine gives him space to sit and consider his world. Kerr will sometimes show a little bit of grit in his relationship with Dawn, but whenever she explodes with emotion, he falls back to niceness. These volatile moments usually end with Kerr retreating to silence, Safdie holding the camera on the massive man as he sits, doing his best to not think about what happened.

As a result, Kerr gives Johnson nothing to do as an actor. There’s no rich humanity to bring to the fore, no complication for him to explore. He’s big and he’s nice. He’s capable of hurting people inside the ring, but he actively avoids reflection. He’s all massive surface.

To be sure, good stories can be told about characters obsessed with winning. One need only look at last year’s excellent Challengers or, incidentally, Johnson’s performance in the much better and much more unpleasant Michael Bay movie Pain & Gain. Further, it’s always a good thing when a movie star wants to challenge themselves and find new ways of doing their art. But they need a part rich enough to perform that work, and Mark Kerr isn’t that part for Dwayne Johnson.

The Smashing Machine is now playing in theaters worldwide.