The Smashing Machine

 Let's get ready to rumble with tonight's match!

In this corner, The Smashing Machine, directed by Benny Safdie, a true-life story of one fighter's struggle against his personal demons!

In that corner, Marty Supreme, directed by Josh Safdie, a story loosely inspired by a true-life table tennis star!

Now, which one of these sports movies by these filmmaking brothers will come out on top? Find out this Christmas when Marty Supreme actually comes out!

....

I don't know who that is, but here's what I thought about this current film.

The Review

Our contender is a feature remake of the HBO documentary - subtitled The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr - directed by John Hyams. It opens with Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) being interviewed in glorious VHS before he makes his MMA debut in 1997. It bumps up the quality once the bloodsport gets well underway. According to production notes, Maceo Bishop switches up the subsequent scenes from 16mm to 65mm, but I barely noticed any difference.

Kerr earns his monicker as he smashes through his subsequent fights. Outside of the ring, he lives a decent life with girlfriend Dawn Staples (Emily Blunt). Inside the ring, he can't fathom losing until he does so in Japan. Although the fight is ruled a no-contest, the initial shock exasperates Kerr's substance abuse problems. He eventually cleans up after an off-screen overdose, while pals and fellow fighters Mark Coleman (actual MMA fighter Ryan Bader) and Bas Rutten (as himself) coach him back to victory. But all that success worsens his relationship with Dawn.

It sells itself quite well on Johnson's performance. He's quite likeable as Kerr, who's only brutal because his chosen sport is brutal. He' quite charming as he boasts about winning - which he calls the "highest of highs" - during an interview. His time with Dawn gives him a few nice scenes, though there's a major caveat I'll discuss in the next paragraph. When he loses that first fight, you'll feel his bravado shatter as you wonder how he picks himself up. He does so pretty well, even if it involves another big loss. All in all, this is a standout performance from The Rock, as well as another triumph for Kazu Hiro and his makeup team.

As I said, Johnson and Blunt have some nice scenes, including a stop at a carnival. These moments are outnumbered by their quarrels, which usually involve Kerr overreacting to an innocuous comment.  You can probably count the number of scenes that result in no argument one hand. There's some property damage, notably Kerr punching a door into nothing twice, but not physical damage. One argument even escalates to Dawn trying to kill herself, the culmination of her own barely-explored addictions. Kerr calms her down, and she's literally driven out of the movie in a cop car. Their off-screen reconciliation and eventually brief marriage could've been conveyed better than a piece of epilogue text.

Anything else good? Bader proves quite a natural in his film debut. As Coleman, he's quite likeable whether he's acting as Kerr's pal or even potential opponent. He and Rutten also make for great mentors to Kerr. Their adversaries are also played by actual fighters, such as Cyborg Abreu (as Fabio Gurgel) and Satoshi Ishii (as Enson Inoue). Their experience, Safdie's editing prowess, the sound designers, and the aforementioned makeup team, render the fights appropriately brutal. The aforementioned epilogue lets the real Kerr play himself, which is kind of nifty. I think that's it.

The Smashing Machine is still contending for your box-office dollars. It could've done without all that arguing, but Johnson's performance makes it a decently interesting biopic. I went in knowing little about Mark Kerr, and I went out wanting to watch the original documentary. Thing is, it's not actually available anywhere, not even on HBOMax! That's a real disappointment. This movie, on the other hand, is all right. I think I said enough.