Ticketworthy! - The Smashing Machine

To be fair to writer/director Benny Safdie, biopics have become something of a stale genre of movie over the years. It’s really amazing how many successful people’s life stories seem to be about a plucky and talented nobody who becomes a star only to hit a low thanks to drugs or alcohol before rising from the ashes a better and changed person. It happens a lot. As a result, I understand Safdie wanting to stay away from that plot and break the mold a bit with The Smashing Machine. To his credit, he pulls that off. It’s different. In this case, however, different doesn’t necessarily mean better.

The film follows Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson), a professional fighter in the early days of MMA, before the sport became the global juggernaut it is today. Mark has to ply his trade in Japan, putting his body and health on the line in each fight. Along the way, he deals with constant pain and the dangers of its treatment while attempting to navigate his difficult relationship with his girlfriend, Dawn (Emily Blunt).

Unquestionably, the real-life Kerr is a pioneer in the world of combat sports. If not for him and the others of his time, MMA would likely never have become as big as it is. So, I mean no disrespect when I say that nothing about this movie made me understand why they made this movie. Mark has a brief battle with drug addiction in the film, and he has to navigate a fraught relationship that comes to a head before the biggest tournament of his life, all of that is somewhat interesting. Yet, the film spends very little time on any of that.

It barely shows his battle with drugs, and that plotline is resolved by the end of the second act. Dawn jumps in and out of the story, but she’s hardly a fixture. As for the fighting, we get a few small scenes, but honestly, we see more of Mark preparing for the fights and doing interviews than any actual fighting. For a movie called The Smashing Machine, there’s shockingly little smashing. As presented, it’s not an inspirational story about an athlete overcoming adversity. It’s just two hours of watching Mark Kerr...exist. I’m not totally sure what the point is.

That said, everybody involved in making the film sure tried their best. Safdie is a good filmmaker, and the choice to shoot most of the movie on 16mm film is inspired. It looks fantastic, like a video straight out of the 90’s. The filming style really immerses you in the time-period. The acting is also spot-on; this may well be the best performance of Johnson’s career. The range he shows with this character is unlike anything I’ve ever seen him play. It’s impressive. Emily Blunt isn’t in as much of the movie as I’d have liked, she’s always excellent and this is an interesting character for her.

The real surprise in the cast, though, is Ryan Bader as Mark’s longtime friend and fellow fighter Mark Coleman. Bader is a professional fighter himself, and this is his first major movie role. To say he nails would be an understatement. He’s so good, and his character has such an interesting journey during the story, that I’m actually not entirely sure why the movie wasn’t just about him. It probably would have been better.

Unfortunately, it isn’t. Instead, The Smashing Machine is just an extremely well-made movie starring several very talented people that never quite justifies its own existence. Had a little more time and care been put into exploring the darker parts of Mark’s life, or if the story had focused more on the impact he and the others had as fighters, there may have been a worthwhile narrative there. In the end, the cast and crew may have crafted an absolute knockout, but it’s held back by a story that pulls too many punches.