Producers: Benny Safdie, Eli Bush, Erica Young, David Koplan, Dany Garcia, Hiram Garcia and Dwayne Johnson Director: Benny Safdie Screenplay: Benny Safdie Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Ryan Bader, Bas Rutten, Oleksandr Usyk, Lyndsey Gavin, Satoshi Ishii, James Moontasri and Yoko Hamamura Distributor: A24
Grade: C
Dwayne Johnson stretches, both in gym exercises and in his first major dramatic role as legendary MMA fighter Mark Kerr, in Benny Safdie’s “The Smashing Machine,” the writer-director’s first solo effort after his string of collaborations with his brother Josh. Johnson is transformed with facial prosthetics (and a head of curly hair) into a convincing lookalike for Kerr (at least until a haircut late in the film that leaves him resembling the actor more than the fighter), but more importantly he captures Kerr’s careful speech patterns and controlled attitude, along with more than a hint of the seething competitiveness and animal instinct lying not far beneath his air of gentle composure.
Unfortunately Safdie’s approach proves superficial, not allowing Johnson to delve very deeply into the roiling emotions beneath the placid interior—except, of course, during the matches when that instinct to dominate is unleashed, and in his altercations with his long-time girlfriend Dawn Staples (Emily Blunt).
That’s because the writer-director has effectively straitjacketed himself by relying so heavily on his basic source, John Hyams’ well-received 2002 documentary “The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr.” Like that film, Safdie’s essentially limits itself to the period 1997-2000, even recreating scenes from it as closely as possible with only modest tweaks. An example comes rather early on, when soft-spoken explains—and justifies—his job as an MMA fighter to a skeptical woman in a doctor’s waiting room. She’s repelled by the brutality of the sport he represents (which, at the time, was under fire for its “no-holds-barred” reputation from government figures led by Senator John McCain, and was actually banned from some states and broadcast entities until it imposed some rules that allowed it to flourish). Safdie adds a little autograph-signing coda to the scene to further humanize things, but otherwise it’s pretty much the same.
The drama also recreates matches (or excerpts of them), using footage from Hyams’ documentary as models. The job is well-done from a technical perspective—credit is due in that respect to Safdie (who also edited) and cinematographer Maceo Bishop, as well as the intensity of Johnson and those who play his opponents—but it seems a matter of craftsmanship rather than true artistry. The result is also undercut by one of the constant flaws in such material, the inanity of the commentators who describe for us what’s happening and why it’s decisive.
The arc of the plot is actually fairly commonplace. With little reference to his youth or college wrestling career—elements that could flesh out the character—Safdie introduces Kerr at the start of his pro career, inflicting pain on his adversaries at Brazil’s Vale Tudo competition in a debut so overwhelming that it makes observers—as well as Kerr himself—believe that he’s an invincible pummeling machine. It then moves to his stint in the USA UFC, without paying much attention to that fledgling organization’s troubles, before moving on to Kerr’s involvement with Japan’s Pride Fighting Championship.
It’s a tale of early success followed by a career downturn represented by a 1999 loss to Ukrainian behemoth Igor Vovchanchyn (Oleksandr Usyk) which, because of the latter’s employment of illegal kicks, would later be revised to a “no contest” decision. But the disappointment crushes Kerr’s belief in his invincibility, and accelerates his opioid use to relieve the pains of combat. The result is his collapse, hospitalization, and decision to enter rehab, after which he returns to the Pride Grand Prix of 2000, in which it’s widely believed he and friendly rival Mark Coleman (Ryan Bader) will face off in the final for a $200,000 prize. But a brutal loss to Kazuyuki Fujita (Yoko Hamamura) sidelines him, and Coleman faces Vovchanchyn for the championship. With that Sadfie’s film, like Hyams’, closes, except for a caption about his later career and a postscript in which the real Kerr is shown shopping for groceries in retirement.
Where Sadfie’s film expands on the Hyams documentary is the dramatization of the personal, and particularly domestic side of Kerr’s story. So we see more of his training regimen before his 2000 return to the Pride ring under the watchful gaze of veteran Bas Rutten, playing himself (a scene in which the trainer collapses and Kerr injects him with some leftover opioids is a standout) and more of his friendship with Coleman, presented as a contrast to Kerr in being a centered family man.
That contrast points to the much expanded view of Kerr’s relationship with Staples, who’s presented as a major reason for Kerr’s failures, not just for refusing to see to his perfectionist impulses (scenes in which she neglects to prepare his smoothie to his exact specifications and doesn’t respect his desire that she keep her cat off his leather couch summarize the trait) but for flaunting her more hedonistic impulses while he’s trying to maintain his sobriety.
Worse, she’s depicted as breaking his concentration repeatedly with her demands on him just as he’s trying to maintain a pre-match focus. To be sure, at some points she’s shown in a better light—she’s instrumental in ensuring that he go into rehab, for example, and the closing caption indicates that eventually they married and had a child (before separating, however). Overall, though, Dawn’s portrayed as a fatal chink in Kerr’s armor, and the characterization doesn’t give Blunt much leeway to add nuance to her performance: simply put, there’s a self-centered shrewishness to Dawn from beginning to end. That allows for some feverish melodramatic flourishes when the two have their down-and-out battles, which often turn violent; but it leaves one with the feeling the relationship of co-dependency hasn’t been seriously explored.
In Sadfie’s telling this is a very focused story, with only Johnson, Blunt, Bader and Rutten (the latter two fine, if unexceptional) given much attention; the rest of the cast certainly does what’s expected of them, but apart from a few of the actor playing Pride officials and soft-spoken Japanese interviewers none make more than a momentary impression. Production designer James Chinlund and costumer Neidi Bivens convey the chintzy gaudiness of the various competitions nicely, as well as capturing the sadly floozy look of Staples’ preferred wardrobe and the adobe dullness of their Scottsdale home. Nala Sinephro’s score can’t compete with the roars of the crowd during the fight scenes.
Which raises an issue that Sadfie stays well clear of. Sports have always, at their most extreme, fed on blood-lust—not only of competitors (Kerr refers with relish of giving in to his animal instincts) but of those who watch them. This is hardly a new phenomenon—one need only think of the pankration in the ancient Greek Olympics—but there’s a reason why McCain (and Kerr’s father in Hyams’ documentary) described the sort of no-holds-barred battles in which Kerr engaged as the human equivalent of cockfighting. Of course, since Kerr’s time the UFC has moderated the brutality of MMA combat considerably by imposing rules on it. But perhaps its popularity should still give one pause: after all, the bouts really represent a kind of war in one-on-one form. And with actual war once again in vogue, celebrating the pioneers of MMA like Kerr and Coleman, along with the institution they were instrumental in popularizing, just might not be all that wise.