Recommendations of the Editorial team
In a title like “The Smashing Machine”, Benny Safdie’s first solo director’s work expects a brutal, rousing film experience. The film is based on the 2002 document of the same name about Mark Kerr’s life, one of the first American stars of the Mixed Martial Arts. But instead of drawing an intensive portrait of the sweat and the hardness of the MMA, “The Smashing Machine” seems thoughtful, almost floating. It stands less than it flows.
Dwayne Johnson’s silent reluctance
This is definitely a welcome change, since films about professional fighters usually rely on hardness and pathos. There is plenty of blood and dirt, but Safdie captures all of this with a light hand. He shows the inflated fighters as simple men who try to make something out. The result is a surprisingly friendly film that invites where you would actually expect rejection. However, there is a narrow ridge between reserved and undercote – and Safdie often crosses it. His film simmered so quietly that one wonders whether the stove is at all.
Mark Kerr is played by Dwayne Johnson, the former wrestler and action comedy star. In advance, the project was advertised as an opportunity to discover Johnson’s dramatic side-maybe even with Oscar ambitions. But Safdie deliberately dispenses with large “Oscar clips” and lets Johnson play quietly, in a controlled manner. Instead of loud pathos, he relies on sensitive nuances and develops Johnson’s familiar “gentle giant” image.
Johnson looks less like the smooth PR professional than you know from him, but shows a subtle vulnerability. The film releases what is real with Kerr – and what is not. Johnson’s performance is withdrawn, modest, and precisely because of this impressive.
Fantastic pictures instead of hard excitement
Safdie builds the right environment for this: The plot flows in dreamy pictures, follows Kerr around the globe and to his private life, changes between the octagon and everyday life. Nala Sinephros Jazzy-played soundtrack strengthens this floating state-right down to sleepiness. Often you are lulled where tension would actually be appropriate.
The big topics – Kerr’s drug problems, its difficult relationship – are shown, but rarely made tangible. The passion for his sport remains an assertion instead of experience. Anyone who has hoped for a modern “Rocky” spectacle will be disappointed.
A sober look at MMA
Safdie does not romantize sport. MMA in the late nineties appears as a raw clash of bodies, in unadorned changing rooms and simple back rooms. This sobriety is particularly attractive – the everyday life of the fighters looks like a job, only that huge gladiators roam the corridors here.
Real fighters contribute to the authenticity: Ryan Bader as Kerr colleague Mark Coleman, Bas Rutten as himself. Both radiate credibility and camaraderie and take Johnson-and the audience-into their world. Emily Blunt as Kerr’s girlfriend Dawn Staples is also surprisingly inconspicuous, reflects Johnson’s calm and intensity. Even in an escalating dispute scene, the tension remains steamed.
A film without fireworks – to the end
This gentleness is also the strength and weakness of the film. One often wonders why this story has to be told as a feature film. Only at the end finds the emotional climax: a still, moving picture of Kerr, who thinks about victories, defeats and the price of his dream.
You inevitably think of Johnson himself: the star, who after many successes last to accept setbacks. Perhaps “The Smashing Machine” is also a silent admission for him that defeats are not a terminus, but part of the way.
In the end, there is a sports drama that is difficult to love – because it offers little support – but that still touches. Safdie shows that sports films do not always have to live from triumph and tragedy, but also from the gaps in which real life takes place.