Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine may not follow the conventional blueprint of a sports biopic, but it is undeniably anchored by one of Dwayne Johnson’s most compelling performances to date. Playing Mark Kerr, one of the pioneering figures in mixed martial arts, Johnson transforms physically and emotionally to disappear behind his character.
Under prosthetics and makeup, Johnson embodies Kerr’s physical dominance while conveying the vulnerability beneath. He convincingly portrays Kerr’s duality: the quiet, almost childlike man, and the sudden, formidable fighter — a tension that is central to the character but underexplored in the script. Whether he is in the ring, aboard a plane, or behind the wheel of a sports car, Johnson owns the screen.
Opposite him, Ryan Bader plays Mark Coleman, Kerr’s friend and rival. As a professional fighter rather than a trained actor, Bader brings authenticity to his character. Emily Blunt portrays Dawn, Kerr’s girlfriend, and in her limited screen time conveys the emotional complexity of a relationship fraught with love and tension. Unfortunately, the film does not explore this fully, leaving one of its potentially richest dynamics underdeveloped.
Safdie’s stylistic choices further distinguish the film. Rather than immersing viewers in the intensity of MMA fights, sequences are often observed from a distance—through ropes, from above, or fragmented by the camera’s perspective. A jazz and pop-rock soundtrack is also an unconventional choice.
The film captures Kerr’s sporting achievements effectively, right from his first tournament in São Paulo. Yet when the story touches on Kerr’s personal struggles — painkiller addiction, domestic tensions, or rivalry with Coleman — it rarely probes the emotional depth behind these crises. The result is an occasionally detached narrative.
However, viewers remain engaged thanks to the incorporation of documentary elements in the narrative. Real-life MMA figures like Satoshi Ishii, Oleksandr Usyk, and Bas Rutten make fleeting appearances.
One of the film’s most compelling aspects is how Johnson conveys Kerr’s duality. There is the quiet, meticulous man concerned with minor comforts, and there is the unstoppable fighter whose violence is terrifying in its suddenness. Safdie’s script does not fully explore this complexity, but Johnson’s performance fills the gaps.
While the narrative loses some momentum in the later half of the film, particularly during comeback fights and Kerr’s domestic troubles, Johnson’s screen presence bridges the film’s observational style and its human drama, making the audience care deeply about Kerr even when the story resists conventional emotional payoffs.
The closing images of the real Mark Kerr, ordinary and uncelebrated, underscore the poignancy of Johnson’s achievement: he humanises a largely unsung hero without reducing him to spectacle.