Some will hate Benny Safdie’s “The Smashing Machine,” and some will love it. I’m somewhere in the middle. It’s a strong film in a lot of ways, but it’s also one that struggles to stand apart from a story already told.
Safdie, directing for the first time without his brother Josh, proves again that he knows how to create atmosphere. The film looks and sounds beautiful. Shot mainly on 16mm, with splashes of 70mm and even grimy VHS, it teleports you right into the 90s fight world. The gyms, arenas, and hotel rooms feel authentic.
The sound design is equally striking, with a consistent bass tone playing during times of tension and a light new-wave jazz score playing during times of clarity. The score offers a unique balance between dread and quiet melancholy. The sensory impact is undeniable.
At the film’s center is Dwayne Johnson as Mark Kerr, and it’s a career-best performance that will likely earn him an Oscar nomination. But the awards talk is complicated. It recalls Brendan Fraser’s win for “The Whale,” a performance widely admired even though the film itself received mixed reviews.
Safdie’s film faces a similar issue. Johnson is excellent, but much of the film feels designed to showcase him. When the rest of the film doesn’t rise to the same level, it raises the question of whether the project is more about positioning Johnson for awards than telling Kerr’s story.
Even with that concern, it’s hard to deny how effective Johnson is in the role. There are moments when he looks uncannily like Kerr and others when it feels like he’s confronting his dedication to his own career as “The Rock.” Emily Blunt is just as effective as Kerr’s partner Dawn, giving the film its intense emotional anchor. Their scenes together bring out the human story the film wants to tell.
The story may surprise people expecting a sports drama. Safdie doesn’t focus on Kerr’s impact on mixed martial arts. Instead, the film is about his personal life: his addiction, his relationship struggles, and his insecurities. It’s a more intimate portrait, but it also means the film often feels more like a soap opera than a high-stakes thriller. Safdie’s earlier work, like Uncut Gems, thrived on constant tension. “The Smashing Machine” doesn’t have that same drive, and at times it wanders.
The other problem is comparison. Kerr’s story has already been told in John Hyams’ 2002 documentary, also titled “The Smashing Machine.” That film captured Kerr’s rise and struggles with raw immediacy. Safdie’s dramatization, for all its visual strength and committed performances, can’t match that. It’s too polished to feel as raw as the documentary, but too unfocused to become the definitive retelling. The result is a film that lives in between… beautiful to watch, but less clear on why it needed to be made.
Still, it’s not a film to dismiss. The craft is excellent, Johnson and Blunt bring real depth to their roles, and Safdie has an eye for finding drama in the quietest details. “The Smashing Machine” may not replace the documentary, but it does offer a striking, sometimes messy, look at the man behind the fighter. It’s just disappointing this feels more like blatant Oscar bait than an actual attempt at a great biopic.
