“The Smashing Machine” starts with a long montage of fighter Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) pounding and wailing on various opponents. The camera is oddly divorced from the action, but there’s no denying the fact that Kerr – one of the most famous figures in the early years of mixed martial arts and UFC – is absolutely annihilating these guys. Over the montage, Mark is talking to a reporter, affably going into detail about how much he loves winning. He sounds like the nicest guy in the world, but make no mistake – he is no loser. He will always win.
This is where “The Smashing Machine” starts – where another movie’s middle might be – with Mark on top of the world. He’s in a committed relationship with girlfriend Dawn Staples (Emily Blunt). He’s already addicted to painkillers. And he’s about to lose the first fight of his career.
Directed, written, and edited by Benny Safdie (his first film made without his brother, Josh Safdie), “The Smashing Machine” is based on the 2002 documentary of the same name and feels remarkably similar in its construction. Safdie’s film is observational, almost natural, in feel. While it’s an admirable goal, to make a sports movie that feels so rooted in realism, the attempt is far more interesting than the product. What comes out of this experiment is something completely devoid of tension or emotion that leaves you wondering why you should even care in the first place.
The movie is so similar to the documentary that it sometimes straight-up lifts certain scenes, including a moment used prominently in the trailer where Mark explains what UFC is to a skeptical woman in a doctor’s office. But the documentary also adds context – clues as to who the real people on the screen are and why – that feels lost in the film. Safdie has stated that his intent was to make Mark and Dawn feel like real people. It’s an admirable intention, but one that ultimately fails.
For a movie about fighting, “The Smashing Machine” lacks rhythm, particularly when it comes to how the scenes are laid out. This happened, then this, then this – the experience of watching the film is sometimes more akin to reading a Wikipedia entry than watching a film. When the film is at its most cinematic – usually during fights, or training montages – it can be affecting. But all the well-timed needledrops in the world can’t overcompensate for a lack of passion.
The movie follows Mark from 1997 to 2000, a period in which he struggled with addiction issues, relationship issues, and grew ever more famous. He’s clearly a complicated person – and Johnson’s performance finds some nuance in that – but Safdie doesn’t delve into the psyche of Mark so much as he shows us the external product of that psyche on its face, devoid of depth.
The most important thing to Mark is winning, but there’s no clear answer as to why that is. We don’t really understand why he stays with Dawn, in a relationship that’s volatile at best, hostile at worst. During a climactic moment at the film’s end, Safdie uses a montage to show us Mark’s inner thoughts while he’s pinned to the mat – a cliché move if there ever was one – but it’s too late by then. It’s not that we need Mark to voice his inner monologue, but a less removed visual style, one that reflects the complexity of its central character, might have done the trick.
Mark’s relationship with Dawn takes up a good portion of the film’s runtime, mostly centered around long, drag-out fights that are always about the same thing. Dawn, who ostensibly is a real person, comes off as the most surface level of sports movie girlfriends. Besides one scene where, after Mark gets sober, Dawn tells a friend that she misses when he was on drugs because he was nicer to her, we are given zero insight into her mindset. Blunt goes for it acting-wise, but without much to lean on, her every move feels performative. That lack of insight makes a certain third act turn ring hollow.
The shining spot in “The Smashing Machine” is the relationship between Mark and his friend and fellow MMA fighter Mark Coleman (Ryan Bader). Bader is a real mixed martial artist, and brings a level of authenticity to his role that, for as much as Blunt and Johnson try, they can’t quite match. Johnson, however, is fairly skilled at playing Mark’s genuine kindness against his ability to use that quality to manipulate. A scene in a hospital between Coleman and Mark just after Mark has overdosed exemplifies this trait.
Throughout the film, it feels like Coleman is the only person who really understands how to connect with Mark. When he comes to visit Mark in the hospital, he lets him shoot the breeze and pretend everything is fine for a few minutes before suddenly telling him, “Just stop.” Mark immediately breaks down into tears in a moment that finally gives the audience some emotional beat to grasp onto. This moment gives us real insight into Coleman and Mark’s relationship, far more than the clichéd fights between Dawn and Mark ever do. It seems, for as much as Safdie tried to avoid clichés, he still fell into those very traps.