The Smashing Machine Review: Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt Bulk Up Bland Sports Drama

There are a couple of spectacular fights in Benny Safide’s The Smashing Machine. The new film, about the life and career of Mark Kerr during the early days of the UFC and mixed martial arts going mainstream, is marketed for its hard-hitting sports action, as well as Dwayne Johnson’s physical and spiritual transformation. And to be sure, the real-life wrestler with the Goliathian physique does fine work as Kerr in and out of the ring, stretching far beyond his Rock persona.

Yet the cinematic body blows that land hardest come squarely from the film’s domestic side. It is when Johnson’s Kerr and Emily Blunt as longtime girlfriend Dawn Staples enter a verbal arena that Safdie’s movie becomes devastating—and certainly more exciting than anything occurring inside an octagon. Johnson and Blunt have of course acted onscreen together before, with their faint but tangible chemistry being one of the few bright spots in the literal Disney theme park ride movie, Jungle Cruise. Those of us who noticed that flickering crackle back then can now feel a sense of vindication, as the spark’s been fanned into a roaring inferno that leaves both Smashing performances burning bright.

From the outside, Blunt seems cast yet again in the relatively thankless role of “the wife” or “girlfriend,” an irony since that Hollywood archetype earned her an overdue Oscar nod after Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. She is surely about to receive a second after Smashing Machine, which takes the tired sports drama convention of the athlete and his doting lover to a propulsive place while essaying Mark and Dawn during their tumultuous years between 1997 and 2000.

Early in the picture, one of Mark’s several trainers who must be mistaking Blunt for Talia Shire, even tells her to “just take care” of Mark. Perhaps from a distance it would seem a reasonable request. Johnson imbues his protagonist with a paradoxical gentle giant quality that emphasizes an unexpected warmth. It also conceals a deep-seated desire to dominate, both in his bloodsport and in life. This unmistakable ambition collides headlong against Blunt’s own brittle shoreline. In this way, Safdie’s screenplay probably does walk the razor’s edge while flirting with the shrew or “troubled woman” archetype, but Blunt and her director dig beneath the surface, extracting great affection and complexity in a turn that hints at undiagnosed disorders and severe emotional fault lines.

Watching Johnson and Blunt get to dance along them—a serious acting feat the likes of which Johnson hasn’t bothered attempting in the 12 years since Michael Bay’s ambitious (if grotesque) Pain & Gain—is at times a joy. It also carries what is otherwise a fairly conventional sports drama that struggles to make a real impact.

The film follows Kerr during his heyday as an undefeated UFC fighter who is initially trained and managed by his best friend Mark Coleman (Ryan Bader). When a journalist in Tokyo asks Mark what he would do if he lost an upcoming fight, the champion struggles with the abstraction. “I am trying to intellectualize your question but I really can’t place myself in that situation,” he admits with an open, earnest grin. Yet as much as Safide appears eager to study a time when the UFC was seen only as thuggish violence and mayhem—a perception it has never fully shaken—he also is keen to live with a star whose shining moment came before the sport he helped define was accepted. And there is only one direction an athlete can go when they’re at the top and still a decade away from retirement. The emotional and physical toll this takes on Kerr, his girlfriend, and even Coleman, who eventually leaves Kerr’s side to become a successful MMA fighter in the ring, is designed to weigh heavily on the man unable to grasp defeat.

It is tempting to write hyperbolic statements along the lines of “Johnson is a revelation” after watching this movie. However, Johnson has always been a gifted actor for those paying attention. His charisma is undeniable, but the way he could employ it to steal scenes from John Travolta in Be Cool, or weaponized by artists like Richard Kelly in Southland Tales or the aforementioned Pain & Gain, has always been an overlooked aspect of his talent. The Smashing Machine is the best artistic use of Johnson’s abilities to date, with Mark comprising a layered and sympathetic figure even when he’s at his most whiny and precious—which often occurs when he winds down his abuse of painkillers. There are limits to the performance, especially in scenes where Johnson is asked to cry, but it is a strong center of gravity for a character study.

Unfortunately the study Safdie makes is fairly inert. As a fight night entertainment, Smashing Machine is all filler and no killer, or akin to spending two hours in the promotional space where fighters snarl and preen for the cameras, but never put on the gloves. One senses Safdie wishes to make something closer to the psychological devastation of Raging Bull, but Johnson’s Mark Kerr is too well-adjusted for that.

Despite Benny having co-directed with brother Josh two of the most intense thrillers of this century—Good Time and the stone-cold masterpiece that is Uncut Gems—Smashing Machine never once quickens the pulse. It is, in fact, quite dull for a few stretches, including when it goes ringside to film the fights that define Mark’s life with passivity and indifference. Even structurally relying on using interview snippets for shorthand on Mark’s headspace before every single bout grows redundant.

In the end, it is only when we are spending time with Mark and Dawn’s fractious relationship that the movie makes the connection it seeks. This can be those aforementioned fights, or just a bemusing irony at a carnival where Mark declines riding a gravitron attraction with Dawn—he fears it will upset his tummy—and instead asks her to glide with him on a carousel. It is only in the ironies of Kerr’s life that Safdie finds the point he is trying to make about this misunderstood man, moment, and pastime. But the movie passes a lot of time getting there.

The Smashing Machine opens in the U.S. and UK on Oct. 3.