by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $9.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Ryan Bader, Bas Rutten
Intro:
… a disappointing barrage of botches.
Dwayne Johnson has an image problem. Not the expected one to do with off-screen controversies or just plain bad script choices (although arguments could certainly be made), but the image he himself puts out through his choice in roles. Ever since he broke out as the Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns, his natural charisma, likeability, and willingness to engage with comedy as readily as action, set him apart from what was once a cursed position of a wrestler trying to make it as an actor, and became not just a gimmick but a genuine talent. However, that same likeability has also been a liability at times, where that want for validation has ended up kneecapping attempts at more ‘character’ acting; Black Adam and his especially neutered take on Hercules are prime examples.
And unfortunately, it has happened again.
This biopic about the tumultuous career of MMA pioneer Mark Kerr starts out strong, even with the Uncanny Valley effect of Johnson’s facial prosthetics (it aims for Foxcatcher but doesn’t quite reach it). Writer/director Benny Safdie – directing alone after collaborating with his brother Josh on classics Uncut Gems, Good Time and Heaven Knows What – takes clear inspiration from the Smashing Machine documentary with its fly-on-the-wall cinematography by Maceo Bishop and relatively unvarnished look at Kerr’s personality. Obsessed with winning to a pathological degree, twisted by opioid addiction, and intellectualising the desire to tear up his opponent’s face with his fists and/or knees, he’s presented similarly to Robert De Niro as Jake LaMotta – this could have been subtitled ‘Miffed Bull’.
But that presentation doesn’t last long. As willing as Safdie’s scripting is in detailing Kerr’s own self-deception and his hostile relationship with Dawn Staples (Emily Blunt), and as game as Johnson is to follow suit initially, things take a strange shift in tone once Kerr steps out of rehab. All of a sudden, any real psychological insight is replaced by bog-standard sports drama antics, and after a brief absence, Dawn goes from abuse victim to abuse perpetrator, with next-to-no connective tissue to help it make sense.
The optics are bizarre, and while Blunt is doing her damnedest under the circumstances, the script isn’t doing her any favours. That she periodically keeps exiting and re-entering the narrative just to be a sentient obstacle for Kerr only makes it more uncomfortable, and not even in a cathartic way. Hell, once she starts talking about being left with scraps, being kept out of what’s going on with her partner’s life, and how it’s ultimately just all about him, it makes one wonder if any of those remarks were even written down in the first place. Revealing in the worst possible way.
And to make matters worse, the film isn’t even that well-made. The camera work loses its visceral effect long before the just-over-two-hour run time has elapsed, the fight scenes are exasperating in their sameness, and the sound mixing in particular is shockingly bad, particularly with the soundtrack.
Nala Sinephro’s ambient jazz score is commendable and even fits with the action (two forms of freestyle mixing together, between the jazz and Kerr’s fighting style), but it’s mixed so low that it’s often difficult to make out over the crowd noise and squeaking of flesh on the Octagon floor. There’s even a moment where the score is playing, but it’s drowned out not just by the diegetic ambience, but also a needle drop playing at the same time.
The Smashing Machine is a disappointing barrage of botches. Dwayne Johnson does his best Oscar-bait pose but once again succumbs to his inability to let himself be too unlikeable on-screen and under-sells the character arc, while the production around him fumbles with tone, action, and even the soundtrack. Emily Blunt deserves an award for managing to stand out against the mess surrounding her. Coming from Dwayne Johnson, the end result here is (sadly) expected, but for Benny Safdie’s solo debut, it’s quite the let-down.
