By Michael Walsh,Nerdist

Copyright yardbarker

The Smashing Machine follows MMA legend Mark Kerr from 1997 to 2000, which are the early, controversial days of what is now a billion dollar industry. Despite him beginning his mixed martial arts career during this period, he’s already addicted to painkillers. He’s already also with his girlfriend Dawn. While the movie over explains (in a way that doesn’t feel convincing) why winning drives him to compete, it doesn’t reveal much about Kerr otherwise. We don’t know where he came from, why he seemingly doesn’t have any family, or how literally anything in his life shaped the man he became. He just sort of exists. All we really know is that he’s a kind, soft-spoken, otherwise gentle guy who bottles everything up and occasionally flies off the handle.

Dawn (Emily Blunt) yells at him to let her in emotionally so many times it feel as though The Smashing Machine is trying to get ahead of this exact criticism. It seems to tell us Mark Kerr is simply unknowable and therefore we shouldn’t hold it against the movie that it doesn’t really understand him either. It’s not a compelling argument. If the film explained why these two people, who seemingly don’t even like each other, got together in the first place, it would make that a little easier to accept.

Maybe Mark changed? Maybe Mark suffered some kind of trauma? Or maybe Mark, who actually seems very emotional a lot of the time, is more than just a fighter? Does he have other stuff going on? I wouldn’t know. I only sat through this entire two hour film which is entirely about him. You expect me to know something about him now?