Dwayne Johnson Smashes in "The Smashing Machine" (And Not Much Else)

After years of being a personality superstar, Dwayne Johnson wants to be seen as a serious actor. From my perspective, he was always a serious actor. You don’t emit the kind of charisma this man does on the screen if you don’t have some serious talent in you. Johnson doesn’t just want to smile and wink at the camera anymore; he wants to cry, pontificate, and rage as well. It makes sense then that “The Smashing Machine” would be his first major attempt at critical admiration, as he plays Mark Kerr, a man who helped make Mixed Martial Arts Fighting be taken seriously as a sport.

While it may not be as much of a stretch for a man who is a fighter himself to play another fighter, Johnson’s understanding of the sport is likely what makes him so good as Kerr, as he likely knows what goes through a fighter’s head more than most on this planet do. The issue I see is that while Johnson may understand what makes Kerr’s life unique, people like me do not, and the movie does a pretty poor job of acclimating us to why we should care (outside of the whole general care for people in general thing). Outside of a brief scene in the doctor’s office, audiences are largely on their own in immersing themselves in Kerr’s world.

It doesn’t help that the direction and screenplay by Benny Sadfie (making his solo directorial debut) doesn’t seem to know what part of Kerr’s life it really wants to focus on. If he doesn’t care about helping audiences understand the world of MMA, I’m sure there are elements of Kerr’s personal life that can be worth telling. But which one? For a while the movie seems to be about Kerr’s drug problem with opioids, but that gets resolved early on and without so much of a fight (ho ho) when it becomes obvious he needs to check himself into rehab.

He does have a relationship with his girlfriend Dawn Staples (Emily Blunt), but the film seems to be unsure whether this is a supportive relationship or a toxic one. Scenes where he is going through depression after losing a fight shows him unstable, suggesting she could do better, but then she turns flaky when it comes time to support him during his recovery. It's like they have to do this dance of switching off between who is being unreasonable, and thus, the relationship left me feeling more confused than anything. The most interesting dynamic is Mark’s relationship with his friend Mark Coleman (Ryan Bader), who is both his trainer and his competition in the ring.

That was a fascinating dynamic that I wish had been explored more, but, alas, no such luck. Likely the most disappointing aspect of “The Smashing Machine” are the fight sequences, which are unexciting to watch. I’m not expecting “Rocky” or “Creed” levels of fighting, but could they at least match the level of “The Warrior” (another fighting movie that tackles most of the themes in this movie much better)? As a project to showcase Dwayne Johnson’s acting, this is a great vessel for him. As a movie, this is flimsy filmmaking from a director who has proven he can do better before.