Benny Safdie is best known for making acclaimed indies such as Good Time and Uncut Gems alongside his older brother Josh, their films noted for their chaotic camerawork and scuzzy New York City energy. Like the Coens and Wachowskis before them, the directing siblings have gone their separate ways, and sports biopic The Smashing Machine marks Benny’s debut solo effort. Based on the 2002 documentary of the same name, the plot follows former MMA fighter Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) through his career in the ring, his turbulent relationship with girlfriend Dawn (Emily Blunt), and his dangerous addiction to prescription painkillers.
Shot in a similar style to his aforementioned pictures, Safdie brings neat period touches to his usual gritty aesthetic that place us in the late 1990s – there’s a pallid tint to the effective cinematography and tonal shades of Martin Scorsese’s monochromatic tale of fragile masculinity Raging Bull, a notable influence on the script. In the combat sequences that recreate Japan’s beloved Pride Fighting Championships, the frenetic nature of the director’s craft actually works against the film. Bouts are hastily constructed and lack the spectacle we’ve come to expect from the sports genre. It’s disappointing that there’s far more narrative conflict outside the squared circle than within it; the only genuine tension comes from the constant threat of Kerr’s manipulative domestic abuse turning physical.
After a career of comedy, the Safdies let movie-going audiences in on the serious acting of goofball Adam Sandler with Uncut Gems, and it appears Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson hoped for the same transformative treatment, keen to shed his association with big blockbusters. Physically, with a prosthetic makeover and monstrously muscular stature, his performance has an undeniable wow factor and considering his own illustrious background in wrestling, he seems tailor-made for the part. Despite the toil taken to make him look like bully-boy Kerr, there’s little to no attempt to sound like him. When push comes to shove, Johnson is acted off the screen by Emily Blunt who makes the very best of the tired ‘long suffering girlfriend’ archetype. Just like her character in Oscar-winning epic Oppenheimer a couple of years ago, Dawn turns to alcohol as a mechanism to cope with living in the shadow of her significant other.
Many great grapplers have seen their stories portrayed brilliantly on the silver screen, and whilst this cinema adaptation of Mark Kerr’s arc will satisfy a passionate MMA fanbase, it doesn’t feel unique, interesting or entertaining enough to justify its own existence. In fighting terms, the lacklustre jab of The Smashing Machine might put Benny Safdie on the ropes for now but with the filmmaking flair we know he possesses, he’s bound to come out swinging in the next round.
Cinema Perspective 