The marketing for writer-director Benny Safdie’s “The Smashing Machine” isn’t shy about pushing this mixed martial arts biopic as Dwayne Johnson’s Oscar bid. For this film, the artist formerly known as “The Rock” schooled himself in a different kind of fighting. He also underwent intense physical changes, and hours in the makeup chair, to transform into the real-life champion Mark Kerr, one of the earliest MMA celebrities.
It’s no surprise that A24 hopes all that hard work translates into a run for filmdom’s coveted Golden Boy. However, if the words “Oscar nominee Dwayne Johnson” make you snicker in disbelief, you may as well stop reading this review right now. Because I think Johnson should already have an Oscar nomination for his work in 2016’s action comedy, “Central Intelligence.”
As I mentioned in my Toronto International Film Festival coverage, Johnson is very good in “The Smashing Machine.” He has a believable camaraderie with his male co-stars, and is quite convincing as a sensitive, wounded soul who is also capable of delivering the violent goods of his character’s trade. As Kerr, Johnson is as adept at breaking your heart as he is at breaking his onscreen competitors’ noses.
None of these elements struck me as unusual, because I’d already seen him do this caliber of work in “Central Intelligence.” Alas, he’s doing that in service to an outright comedy — and a silly one at that. To be taken seriously as an actor, by both critics and award-bearing entities, one must toss off the comic mask and prostrate before the gods of tragedy.
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During the 123 minute runtime, Kerr battles an opioid addiction brought on by his painful injuries in the octagon; argues over money for his appearances in both Japanese and American bouts; suffers more than one setback to his career aspirations (including a hospital stay); and deals with volatile situations involving the love of his life, Dawn (Emily Blunt). The story covers the years 1997-2000.
Enduring all this drama is how you earn respect on the big screen. It’s a familiar story, one mocked by the old adage that “dying is easy, comedy is hard.”
So, here we are, with Johnson figuratively stuck in the middle, for he gives neither the best performance in “The Smashing Machine,” nor the one that’s so bad it sinks the entire enterprise. I’ll eat my hat if the bad performance doesn’t get nominated. More on that shortly.
You may recognize the director as one-half of the sibling team that brought you Adam Sandler’s rollercoaster ride of a heist film, “Uncut Gems” (2019), and Robert Pattinson’s 2017 thriller, “Good Time.” On the sports side, the Safdies worked on the 2013 basketball documentary, “Lenny Cooke.”
Like the Coens, Josh and Benny Safdie are currently pursuing individual projects. “The Smashing Machine” is Benny’s solo directorial debut, and he does two things quite well. The first is the staging of the bouts themselves. Unlike most boxing and wrestling movies, the camera makes us spectators rather than tossing us inside with the competitors. We’re in the audience at the bouts, so we see what they see rather than the usual cuts to a omniscient viewpoint. This perspective makes the matches exciting, as does the use of real-life MMA fighters in the roles of Kerr’s competitors.
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The other thing Safdie gets right is the depiction of the bond between these fighters. When someone in an emergency room waiting area asks Kerr if he hates his challengers, he says “absolutely not.” “The Smashing Machine” makes us believe that sentiment. For a film about men who bash each other to bloody smithereens for a living, it is refreshingly tender in its depiction of the friendships that exist outside the octagon. There’s no snark or fear present at any time; these men are deeply entrenched in their emotional fraternity.
Helping to convey that love so credibly is current real-life MMA fighter and coach, Ryan Bader. As Kerr’s trainer, friend, and potential competitor, Mark Coleman, Bader gives the best performance here. There’s not a false note in his sincerity, and his scenes with Johnson are the beating heart in this superficially macho movie. The way Coleman looks at Kerr, and the way he supports him, makes you wish he was your friend, too.
As good as Safdie is at busting macho male stereotypes, “The Smashing Machine” is astonishingly bad when it comes to its women characters. As written, Dawn is a raging, oversized example of the nagging girlfriend stereotype that is commonplace in movies about boxing and other sports. From her first scene, Dawn is so antagonistic that she should be twirling a silent movie villain’s curly mustache.
Blunt does her character no favors by overacting to the point where her every appearance inspires groans. Her Noo Yawk accent is as over-the-top as her performance. Perhaps the role is pitched this way to show how subtle Johnson is in response, but it’s a disaster. Living up to her surname, Blunt doesn’t just chew and swallow the scenery, she regurgitates it and chews it again. Along with the bad writing given to her character, she singlehandedly torpedoes “The Smashing Machine.”
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For her effort, I’m sure she’ll be the one who gets the Oscar nomination, not the more deserving Johnson and Bader. That is, if the Academy gods shine down on this movie. I believe they will; the Academy loves “too much acting.”
★★1/2
THE SMASHING MACHINE
Written and directed by Benny Safdie. Starring Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Ryan Bader. At Coolidge Corner, AMC Boston Common, Landmark Kendall Square, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, AMC Causeway, suburbs. 123 min. R (drug use, profanity, sports violence)
Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe’s film critic.