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THE SMASHING MACHINE (M)

Director: Benny Safdie (Good Time)

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt.

The Rock gets on a role for the Oscars

Extensive research conducted during the lockdown years revealed wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson to be one of the most globally recognisable stars in the history of movies.

Johnson was the only contemporary name on an iconic list boasting the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin and Steve McQueen.

He did not achieve his worldwide fame due to the quality of his acting. No, Johnson’s irresistible screen charisma has been founded on a thousand-watt smile, a million-dollar physique and an infinitely appealing combination of confidence and humility.

In his new movie The Smashing Machine, Johnson is forced to leave most of his box of tricks at home. While that physique is very much required for the role he is playing – as is the humility – everything else Johnson brings to the movie is a revelation.

Based on an award-winning documentary from the early 2000s, The Smashing Machine sombrely tells the true story of Mark Kerr (Johnson), a man widely held to be the first great mixed marital arts (MMA) fighter during the formative years of the controversial sport.

The era depicted here is crucial, as MMA had yet to cross over to the mainstream.

A genuinely athletic and artful man-mountain like Kerr was simply too big for the game too early in his career, leaving him trapped inside a void where financial pressures, physical injuries and an addiction to painkillers took their toll all too quickly.

While The Smashing Machine follows a conventional trajectory favoured by other sports biopics, The Smashing Machine’s ability to hold an intimate focus on Kerr’s anchoring relationship with his unflaggingly loyal partner Dawn (an impressive Emily Blunt) is a welcome and warming point of difference.

This is, without doubt, the finest, most accomplished performance of Dwayne Johnson’s career.

Sure, some will quite rightly argue there was not a lot to beat to achieve this new benchmark. Nevertheless, everything Johnson does here – including submitting to facial and physical changes to make him resemble Kerr more closely – marks a huge leap forward for his talent.

If The Rock does not score a Best Actor nomination at the next Oscars for this exemplary work, then the awards system as a whole is more broken than first thought.

The Smashing Machine is in cinemas now.

HIM (MA15+)

General release.

There is so much style on display in Him. It is one of the better filmed and designed horror movies in a year already blessed with a stack of visually impressive chillers. However, when it comes to substance, Him just can’t cut it. The set-up for the story is promising for a few fleeting moments. Tyriq Withers is Cam, a college football star about to turn pro, and widely touted as a future great. All he has to do is make it through a week-long training camp at the remote Texas compound of legendary quarterback Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans), and Cam will be top draft pick of the new season. Needless to say, Isaiah isn’t going to give the supposed heir to his mantle as a GOAT of the game an easy time of it. To further complicate matters, Cam is carrying a concussive condition that is manifesting itself in increasingly worrying ways. Once the movie lands at Camp Isaiah, the oblique weirdness, graphic gore and bizarre shifts in tone that come to define Him are firmly locked into place. The inexperienced Withers just isn’t up to the task of keeping viewers invested in his brutal quest to survive and succeed, and a floundering cohort of co-stars (including Australian stand-up comedian Jim Jefferies) offer nothing in the way of backup. The game is over here well before the closing credits.

PLAY DIRTY (MA15+)

Now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

There has long been a plan for a series of movies framed around the capers of Parker, a clever and conniving crook immortalised by author Donald E. Westlake in more than 20 books. Robert Downey Jr. had his heart set on the project, and only recently stepped aside so that Mark Wahlberg could take a crack.

As an intro to a potential franchise, Play Dirty gets off to a flyer, with a stunning opening sequence depicting a high-stakes robbery well and truly in motion. Once that job goes spectacularly off the rails (and on to a racecourse where a car chase is conducted inside a horse race already underway) Parker (Wahlberg) loses all of his gang and must immediately enter rebuild mode.

Tipped off about what could be the biggest illicit payday of his career, Parker reluctantly joins forces with a dangerous enemy, Zen (Rosa Salazar) to attack a complicated heist, and pocket the loot.

When it comes to crazed, near-manic energy and complete action-movie abandon, Play Dirty gets by just fine as a throwaway viewing experience.

Writer-director Shane Black (The Nice Guys) loads the dialogue deck with plenty of tough-talking zingers, not of all which hit the mark required.

However, the sheer audacity of the action sequences and a solid display from Wahlberg justify at least one more Parker adventure.