The Smashing Machine (2025)

R and a lot of this has to do with Safdie.  While there is language, a lot of it is tempered compared to something like Uncut Gems.  However, the bulk of the movie has to do with violence, drug addiction, domestic abuse --both physical and mental --and a scene depicting a pretty intense suicide attempt.  There is on screen blood, which is something that you have to get used to because one of the motifs is a commentary on the viciousness of the sport.  A well-deserved R.

DIRECTOR:  Benny Safdie

Yeah, I do think it is weird that Dwayne Johnson wasn't nominated for anything.  I'm just coming out and saying it.  He's incredible in this.  I'm even going as far as to say that I don't even know what I like anymore because I shouldn't like any of this.  I don't like sports.  I don't like biopics.  I don't like Benny Safdie.  You would think that I would be really annoyed under any other circumstance.  And while it isn't even close to my favorite movie of the year, I can't deny that there's an incredible amount of quality in this film.

The main draw is Dwayne Johnson.  I don't want to take anything away from Emily Blunt because her performance is (pun not intended) rock solid.  But if Mark Kerr (whom I mentally will be giggling that his name is "marker") is the cement of this film, my goodness, does Dwayne Johnson nail an incredible performance.  This is one of those performances that had me try to reach out to Johnson and congratulate him on one of those tour de force portrayals.  You know that Johnson had to think that this was going to be the movie that got him the Oscar, right?  To not even be nominated is kind of insane.  Between Hugh Jackman for Song Sung Blue and Dwayne Johnson for The Smashing Machine, it's kind of making me question the entire category.  Yeah, I'm griping a little bit because I really don't think that Ethan Hawke's nomination for Blue Moon is better than either performance I saw.  (Again, I really feel like I'm picking on Ethan Hawke, which is something that I don't want to do.)  

Johnson as Mark Kerr is both incredibly endearing and damning at the same time.  Let's put aside that, physically, he might be one of the only people on the planet who can embody someone like Mark Kerr.  He's this goliath of a man who is almost a child internally. (Note:  I also find it bizarre that the real Mark Kerr is in this movie because Kerr doesn't come across as sympathetic a lot of the time.) Johnson seems to understand that, while Kerr's devotion to the sport is his primary drive, he lacks even basic understandings of interpersonal relationships.  He thinks that he's the hero of his own story and that he is the victim of circumstance.  He isn't traditionally a "bad guy".  There are things that should absolutely be condemned for, but he doesn't do anything out of villainy.  If anything, his big push is that he is emotionally immature.  He feeds this toxic and self-sabotaging relationship with Dawn.  But he also is the quintessential "good guy" toxic personality.  He says awful things with a nice guy voice and is shocked when people are hurt by what he does.  I'm not saying that Dawn is off the hook.  Quite the opposite.  Kerr was clearly attracted to someone that he can pin as the root of his problems.  Every time that Mark does something toxic, Dawn will do something more toxic.  It makes him the good guy in every scenario because Dawn demonizes herself.  And Johnson gets that.

There are a couple of crazy things about the fact that Dwayne Johnson took this role, one of which makes me questioning everything that I thought that I knew about Johnson.  I read somewhere (the Internet!  It has to be true!) that Dwayne Johnson doesn't take roles where he loses a fight.  Yet, a lot of this movie is almost a commentary on being obsessed with winning and how stupid that really is.  One of the key character beats is in the first act of this movie.  Mark is being interviewed by a Japanese journalist about what it might mean to lose a fight.  Mark, after we witness him just completely destroy a bunch of fighters in rapid succession, stresses that he can't even intellectualize the question.  Losing --and I do believe that Mark believes this --is so inconceivable.  For the sake of storytelling, coupled with the notion that losing is something that everyone experiences, Mark loses his next match.  Sure, it was because the other guy broke the rules and the match as declared as "no contest."  (I'm pretty sure that means the whole thing was null and void, but what do I know?  I hate sports.) It doesn't matter for Mark.  Mark falls into a deep, self-destructive funk and his life falls apart.  But the insane part is...that's totally Dwayne Johnson.  Heck, there's a part of me that thinks that Dwayne Johnson is really angry for not getting nominated for Best Actor for the Oscars.  Yet, he can tell this story about a guy who crashes out over losing.

One of my complaints about biopics is that they tend to be about the same things over and over, especially when any degree of celebrity is involved.  Usually, people turn to drugs and there's this narrative of how they overcame those drugs to become the best in the world.  That's not this story.  I mean, it is.  Johnson said in an interview that The Smashing Machine was not a fight movie.  I agree.  It's a character movie that is tied to the notion of different kinds of toxic addictions.  Even though Mark starts his career on top, there's never a moment when he's not on drugs.  Sure, he doesn't necessarily come across as a traditional addict in cinema.  He's still charming to most people.  He's got this tiny little voice when asking for prescription narcotics.  But the fact that we never actually met Mark at the beginning when he wasn't addiction to some kind of drug is fascinating.  This isn't the story about how the fame got to his head and he took drugs as part of the lifestyle.  He was a drug addict and happened to be pretty good at beating the living daylights out of people.  Then, he falls off the horse and is really casual about his recovery.  I had to look it up because the movie doesn't really give us a definitive answer on whether or not Mark was honest about his recovery.  Apparently, after the events of the movie, the real Mark got addicted again and was homeless for a while.  But it is an interesting way to look at the notion of addiction.  Maybe it's a little unfair to paint the story of a comeback from addiction when he was still kind of cheating, but that doesn't make for an interesting movie.

I also loved that this wasn't just the story of Mark Kerr.  Using Mark Coleman as a foil to Kerr is such a tropey mislead and I love it.  Coleman is dorky dad.  I don't know what the real Mark Coleman was like.  Heck, I'm even going to go as far as to say that I'm a different dad than Mark Coleman is.  But we have this guy who seems to have some of his priorities in check contrasted against Mark Kerr, who seems to be a well-managed trainwreck.  It's fun.  But the funny thing is, the movie sets up this notion that the two will have to fight.  As much as Kerr claims to love the people he's playing against, he does take their slights quite personally.  The real weird part is that the fight never happens.  Literally, it seems like it is the climax of the film and that fight never happens.  I'm glad that the movie didn't engineer that fight for the sake of an audience.  That would have been a dealbreaker for me.  But the insane thing is that the Safdies kept on playing up the idea that Kerr would fight Coleman and that Kerr might actually really hurt this nice man who takes care of him.   And, as much as the film sells the fact that Mark is not right in the head due to Dawn's suicide, I also feel like he throws the fight.  I know.  This is headcanon.  But he is on the ground after absolutely wrecking this guy and it seems like that is the mentally healthier option.  I don't know.  I like it.

Maybe I'm just a big hypocrite.  But this is one of those movies that absolutely hit with me.  Maybe it's because I knew nothing about Mark Kerr as opposed to a documentary about Freddie Mercury.  It's not amazing, but the performances alone are worth watching.