It would be wrong to suggest that Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine shows Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in an entirely new light. Johnson is playing a professional wrestler – and so the new role is a chip off the old block. Safdie, though, is forcing one of Hollywood’s most popular mainstream stars to grapple with parts of his personality that are usually left untouched. Johnson gives a performance of immense pathos, intensity and depth – one that looks bound to win him awards recognition. At the early press screening in Venice, the film (playing in competition) was warmly applauded by an audience of critics who never paid much attention to him in Jumanji or Hobbs & Shaw.
Co-star Emily Blunt (who previously worked with Johnson in the goofy action comedy Jungle Cruise) is likewise a long way out of her comfort zone as the wrestler’s loyal but emotionally unstable girlfriend. She is both his biggest support, and, at times, the agent of his destruction.
The film, set in the late 1990s, plays like an anti-Rocky. This is the story of the real-life mixed martial arts and UFC fighter, Mark Kerr. The tone is deliberately dour and downbeat. One of the main pleasures here is the way the picture turns so many of the traditional sports movie conventions on their head. Safdie’s screenplay focuses as much on Mark’s addiction to painkillers and opioids as to his exploits in the ring.
Of course, Mark is also addicted to winning. He rhapsodises about the orgasmic high of imposing his will on his opponent in front of 40,000 baying fans. He’ll go to extremes to achieve that high. If he needs to stick a finger in his opponent’s cut to maximise his pain and thereby secure a victory, that’s what he’ll do. Moments later, though, he’ll be trying to console the man he has just battered into submission.
Mark’s victories exert a huge toll on himself too. He is in constant physical pain, and his mental state deteriorates. Perversely, Dawn (Blunt) seems happiest when Mark is at his lowest ebb because that is when he is most dependent on her. She likes parties, booze and high-jinks, and isn’t the ideal partner for an athlete trying to keep himself in shape.
Safdie shoots the film in deliberately grungy, naturalistic fashion, as if it’s an observational documentary rather than a dramatic movie. The camera is always handheld. Interiors – whether gyms, hotels, sports venues or Mark’s home – are darkly lit. The fights themselves are sickeningly brutal. Mark fought in a period when anything seemed to go, from biting to kneeing your opponent in the head or gouging their eyes.
Ukrainian boxing world champ Oleksandr Usyk has a supporting role as Igor Vovchanchyn, one of Mark’s toughest, most vicious opponents. Usyk doesn’t camp it up like Mr T in Rocky but plays the role straight, albeit occasionally flashing that gap-toothed grin that has put the fear of god into so many of his British opponents.
Safdie doesn’t avoid the cliches altogether. Mark’s bond with his coach and fellow fighter Mark Coleman (played by real-life MMA star Ryan Bader) is almost as strong as his relationship with Dawn. The film has its share of gnarled old coaches sharing their wisdom. “Pain is temporary, pride is forever,” one has emblazoned on his T-shirt.
This, though, is a story in which winning finally begins to seem very hollow. The real way Safdie puts a chokehold on his audience is by examining Mark and Dawn’s physical and emotional weaknesses in such forensic detail. The Smashing Machine may not provide the pay-offs that audiences expect from more conventional sports movies, but this is the most raw and vulnerable that Johnson has ever been on screen. Once you’ve seen him this exposed, you won’t watch his typical action movie stunts in quite the same way ever again.
Dir: Benny Safdie. Starring Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Oleksandr Usyk. 123 mins, cert 12A.
‘The Smashing Machine’ will be released on 3 October
