The Smashing Machine (2025)

By: Mike Ward on Friday, October 03

R Running Time: 123 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

  • Dwayne Johnson gives a career-best performance, disappearing under impressive makeup, but also creating a character unlike any he has ever played.

  • The makeup design notwithstanding, the somewhat rough and unpolished look of the film aims for authenticity and keeps us engaged.

  • Emily Blunt may not have a lot to do here, but she elevates thinly written material and deserves praise for her performance as Johnson’s character’s long-suffering and co-dependent girlfriend, Dawn.

NO

  • I have seldom watched a movie as afraid of its own shadow as this movie is.

  • There is a lack of an emotional hook to any of this, with key moments skimmed over and opportunities for us to become truly invested in what’s happening held back or restrained.

  • The MMA scenes are underwhelming, never delivering close to the intensity that people buying tickets to see “The Rock as a legendary MMA fighter” may be expecting.


OUR REVIEW

Perhaps it is a rhetorical question, but about halfway through The Smashing Machine, as Mark Kerr (played by an unrecognizable Dwayne Johnson), spirals into drug addiction amid a messy, co-dependent relationship with his girlfriend Dawn (Emily Blunt), I thought to myself: Can a movie be this afraid of itself?

For much of the film, co-produced by Johnson and directed by Benny Safdie, there is a notable lack of smashing. Instead, it feels like a giant machine spot-checking dialogue and evaluating scenes, ensuring everyone involved comes out unscathed. The result is a movie that is somehow both watchable and strangely inert. Or, again, a movie afraid of telling the real story of Mark Kerr’s meteoric rise and fall, from 1997-2000, in the foundational days of mixed martial arts (MMA).

Johnson, receiving Oscar buzz for the first time in his career, is truly committed to this role. He disappears under impressive prosthetic makeup work by two-time Oscar winner Kazu Hiro (Bombshell, Darkest Hour) and transforms his body, voice, and demeanor to capture a tightly wound and overwhelmed fighter who sees his success begin to work against a fragile mentality that Safdie hints at, but never explores.

He is presented as a gentle giant, soft-spoken yet manipulative and, at times, a victim of his own narcissism. He is as concerned about proper smoothie ingredients and his training as he is with making sure his girlfriend Dawn (Blunt) keeps her cat off an expensive living room sofa.

Johnson is mesmerizing, but the film never matches his effort. 

If Johnson is this committed, with Safdie directing a movie called The Smashing Machine featuring “The Rock,” why do we get so many flat recreations of interviews, domestic struggles, and a rather strange series of scenes where Kerr spirals to Bruce Springsteen’s “Jungleland” and Blunt rides an amusement park ride to Jon Secada’s “Just Another Day?” 

The fight scenes lack excitement and Safdie’s screenplay is not only predictable but also feels like we are veering into something akin to a made-for-television movie. Early on, Safdie flirts with a documentary-like style, introducing characters through recreating or imagining interviews. Kerr finds connection with fellow fighter Mark Coleman (Ryan Bader, a former MMA fighter), who mentors Kerr in MMA and becomes a close friend. But beyond that, and girlfriend Dawn, Kerr really has no one. Cinematographer Maceo Bishop uses tight close-ups and expansive establishing shots to showcase Kerr’s isolation, but we are almost always kept at arms length. 

There is no “A-ha!” moment. For example, seeing Kerr enter rehab for drug addiction consists of him walking in and then walking out of a rehab facility, lugging a suitcase behind him. What did he go through? How was his treatment? Was there ever a moment where getting clean was a struggle and how did he persevere?

These are the kind of things that connect us to a character, as well as their journey, and they are largely missing here. It’s a shame, because this is the role Johnson has been wanting his whole career. Will he be the first professional wrestler to earn an Oscar nomination? Time will tell, but he will have to overcome a disappointing film to get there.

The rough edges displayed here - handheld camerawork, a muted color palette, and vérité-style recreations are admirable. But The Smashing Machine never engages us beyond the spectacle of Johnson’s transformative performance and Blunt making the most of a thin, vastly underwritten one-dimensional character. 

Cautious and unable to dig deep, Safdie’s film feels misaligned. Safe and uneven, The Smashing Machine hits soft and never bruises - pulling punches for an audience anticipating a series of knockout blows that never arrive.

CAST & CREW

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Ryan Bader, Bas Rutten, Oleksandr Usyk, Satoshi Ishii, James Moontasri

Director: Benny Safdie
Written by: Benny Safdie
Release Date: October 3, 2025
A24