'The Smashing Machine' Gives The Rock His Biggest Canvas Yet

When I first learned that indie directing duo the Safdie brothers' first solo directorial efforts were going to be sports movies, I was a bit puzzled.

Benny Safdie's film — The Smashing Machine, which opens wide on Friday — centers on mixed martial arts pioneer Mark Kerr. Josh's movie Marty Supreme — a Christmas release — is about a fictional American table tennis star played by Timothée Chalamet. These guys made their names on anxiety-riddled crime thrillers; the subject matter didn't seem like a good match.

But as I sat down at a screening of The Smashing Machine, it occurred to me that the Safdies have always been big sports fans. The brothers' 2013 documentary Lenny Cooke — about a maligned high school basketball phenom — is a standout doc in a crowded field of similar films. Their outstanding 2019 panic attack of a movie Uncut Gems' entire plot hinges on sports betting, with NBA Hall-of-Famer Kevin Garnett even along for the ride. The pair are also longtime New York Knicks fanatics. 

That knowledge of and respect for the world of sports is deeply embedded in The Smashing Machine. Most of the supporting cast, including the third-billed Ryan Bader, is made up of current or former MMA fighters. The look and feel of the film's era-specific details are uncanny, especially the low-grade sports broadcast re-creations. Even the film's lead, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, is a former wrestler and football player, making his movements in the training scenes and fight montages very natural. 

The role is Johnson's highest-profile dramatic turn to date. I've always enjoyed Johnson as a screen presence, but he's generally a good fit as a franchise adrenaline-booster (Fast Five, G.I. Joe: Retaliation) or a blunt-force object in action and crime romps (Pain and Gain, The Rundown). Safdie gives Johnson a wide-open canvas — or, maybe, octagon — to flex his dramatic chops, and the results are convincing. 

It helps that roughly half of Johnson's scenes are set in and around the ring, his home away from home. But the others are domestic two-handers with his co-star Emily Blunt, who plays Kerr's partner Dawn Staples, and Johnson holds his own with one of our most versatile lead actresses. Blunt, as usual, morphs into the character with ease. 

It also helps that Johnson, always a gigantic figure, is truly enormous in this movie. I'm not a pro-wrestling guy, so take this with a grain of salt, but to me, Johnson looked slimmer in his "Can you smell what The Rock is cooking?" days. His imposing size here adds to the gentle-giant status that Johnson and Safdie have molded Kerr into — at first.

The gentle-giant cliché in the film's opening act makes The Smashing Machine seem like just another by-the-numbers sports biopic — but Safdie has some tricks up his sleeve. Those expecting the rise-fall-rise of an "adapted from a sanctioned biography" sports movie may be disappointed with the film's anticlimax and zoned-out, often ponderous approach. But the performances and attention to period-specific detail make this an engaging watch. 

Following an emotional standing ovation a the Venice Film Festival — and featuring a compelling wrestling-star-turned-meathead-action-actor-turned-legit-thespian — Johnson might be well-positioned for a run at an Oscar. And that would have seemed unthinkable even two years ago.