PLOT: The story of Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson), an MMA fighter whose meek, affable nature hides the fact that in the ring, he’s a brutal opponent who’s used to being able to dominate all comers.
REVIEW: We’ve seen a lot of movies about fighters, but they all tend to follow a specific formula. Usually, they are about preparing for a big, life-changing fight, and more often than not end in triumph. But what happens after the fight? How does life go on for these athletes, especially once the toll their profession takes on their bodies takes hold of them, and what is the effect on their home life? This year, at TIFF, we’ve gotten two movies dipping into that aspect, one being more conventional (Christy), while this one is anything but.
Rather, Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine focuses on a relatively short span in real-life fighter Mark Kerr’s career, following him from 1997 to 2000 as he competes in a series of brutal MMA bouts in Japan’s PRIDE organization, one of the biggest MMA companies in the world. A revelatory role for Johnson, the star is utterly consumed by Kerr, radically changing his appearance and physique. It’s easy to see why Johnson was such good casting, with his natural charisma a fit for the soft-spoken, friendly Kerr, who is a demon in the ring but (mostly) a sweetheart outside. Some of Johnson’s best moments feature him, as Kerr, just going about his regular life, chatting with folks, including a sweet old lady at a clinic who is intimidated by his beaten-up looks and size.
What Safdie’s film does is show us that if Kerr is the Smashing Machine everyone says he is, what happens when that machine starts to break down? When the movie begins, Kerr isn’t even able to answer a question about how it would feel to lose a fight, as he’s never considered that a possibility. He’s like a child in that he feels certain he will always prevail, even without keeping himself in top shape, as he drinks and indulges in an opiate addiction that begins to wreak havoc in his home life.
This aspect of the movie is given equal screen time with the fighting, with Emily Blunt just as good as his live-in girlfriend, Dawn. While most standard movies would portray her as the typical love interest, this true-to-life tale presents Dawn as just as complicated a character as Mark. While she loves him, the two are highly co-dependent and bad for each other. She can’t stand not being the center of his world when he fights, and the ups and downs become more frequent as certain complications are thrown in, notably Kerr’s struggle with sobriety. The movie is very realistic in this regard, with it a very hard hurdle to overcome when one half of a couple becomes sober and the other doesn’t, with the resentments that crop up on both sides.
It’s this realism that impressed me the most about Safdie’s solo debut, with him also writing the screenplay. The fighting sequences are brutal without being stylized, and Safdie smartly cast real fighters opposite Johnson, with Ryan Bader excellent as Kerr’s best friend, fellow fighter Mark Coleman, while legendary trainer Bas Rutten plays himself. The movie also has a nice jazz score by Nala Sinephro along with a propulsive sense of pace, even though it’s remarkably relaxed compared to the movies Benny did with his brother, Good Time and Uncut Gems. He’s clearly establishing his own identity as a director.
Indeed, The Smashing Machine should prove to be a success for A24 in every way once it gets its theatrical release, as critics will respect it while Johnson’s many fans will be dying to see him in something so different from the rest of his filmography. He’s done an excellent job reinventing himself, and no one can deny The Smashing Machine was well worth the effort all involved put into it.
