Don Reviews "The Smashing Machine"

In 1993, I was invited to Sensei Rod’s house to watch The Ultimate Fighting Championship.  I will admit I was intrigued in the beginning, but watching that first event, it did not turn me into a devoted fan.  The UFC itself has become a worldwide phenomenon, but back in those days one of the biggest names in MMA was Mark Kerr.

The Smashing Machine is the latest film written and directed by Benny Safdie (Uncut Gems) and stars Dwayne Johnson, Bas Rutten, Emily Blunt, and Ryan Bader.  Taking place between 1997 and 2000 and based on a 2002 documentary, it tells the story of the rollercoaster that was both his professional and personal life.

This film is an interesting one to review because it has a number of layers to it as what I can only describe as a dark docudrama.  The look and feel of this film reminded me of the previously mentioned , and much like that film, it exists in that “awards season: category.  With that in mind, the acting is great by people like Johnson, Blunt, and Bader, with strong chemistry all around in any combination of the three (or even all of them together in some cases).

The one thing I have to give a shout out to is the work of the makeup artists that worked on Johnson.  If you knew nothing about this film, you might not recognize that it was Johnson playing Kerr.  When he speaks, it was definitely him, but the visuals had it spot-on all the way down to Kerr’s “cauliflower ear”. It does run a bit long at just over two hours, with some scenes that had me scratching my head as to why they were in there. 

This film made me want to root for Kerr, but many times I wondered why he keeps shooting himself in the foot in many aspects of life.  I have no doubt that this film will be pushed for nominations, and it truly deserves for makeup, but for nothing else really in my opinion, so I will recommend The Smashing Machine as a viewing in a second run theater.