Benny Safdie, formerly of the eponymous directing team the Safdie brothers, makes his solo feature-directing debut with The Smashing Machine, and at a glance, the filmmaker has picked up right where he left off. An off-kilter star vehicle for a leading man looking to stretch as a performer — the film stars professional wrestler-turned-movie star Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, nearly unrecognizable here under facial prosthetics courtesy of the same makeup artists that transformed Charlize Theron into Megyn Kelly in Bombshell — acting primarily against non-professionals that borrows extensively from the aesthetics of documentary filmmaking, The Smashing Machine is an almost monastic study in process and routine. Chronicling real-life MMA fighter Mark Kerr (Johnson) over a three-year stretch, we observe Mark’s exhaustive training regiment in the lead-up to tournaments — which find him repeatedly flying back and forth to Tokyo where his fights are staged — as well as rehabilitating himself in their aftermath, which indulges his habit of self-medicating. But whereas the films made in collaboration with his older brother, Josh, are recognizable for their jittery, walking panic-attack qualities, The Smashing Machine is comparatively quiet and almost defiantly anti-dramatic. The film has the general shape of a conventional sports film, but Safdie curiously flattens out triumphs and defeats alike, focusing instead on small but relatable foibles and the hollow comedown even in the wake of glory. We’ll have to wait for Josh’s Marty Supreme — similarly about a niche sport — to uncover whether he’s actually the rousing populist in the family.
Set during the late ’90s, when the UFC was closer to a traveling sideshow struggling to get sanctioned nationwide than the billion-dollar sports-entertainment behemoth it is today, The Smashing Machine foregrounds the cognitive dissonance at its center right from the jump. We’re introduced to Mark in a montage as he efficiently takes down waves of opponents, while on the soundtrack we hear him talk in a soft-spoken voiceover (Johnson adopts a flat, folksy midwestern accent throughout the film), elucidating the central tension of competing in MMA: can he hurt his opponent before they hurt him? At times, the question feels more rhetorical than not. Mark claims he’s never lost a fight before — even when he’s technically boasting, the character comes across as sweetly unassuming — and when prompted by a member of the Japanese media on how he might feel if he were to lose, he’s as perplexed by the question as a regular person might be if asked about the likelihood of taking flight by flapping their arms quickly. There isn’t a lot of suspense to Mark’s fights, with Johnson’s almost comedic-looking physique — the actor, who wasn’t exactly a twig to begin with, is so bulked up here that he resembles an inverted triangle kept aloft by legs that appear almost ornamental — dwarfing his opponents. Accordingly, Safdie treats these brief and brutal matches as foregone conclusions, hastily undertaken with minimal fanfare by their participants. Outside the spotlight, combatants treat one another like coworkers and even friends. After grappling in the octagon, they compare recently sutured wounds backstage and pose for smiling photos together. It’s bloodsport treated like another day at the office.
It’s appropriate then that the film is uncommonly consumed with quotidian matters. That includes negotiating (almost humiliatingly small) contracts with Japanese promoters, giving the insurance companies the runaround to score opioids under the radar, and mastering the proper method for making a protein smoothie. There isn’t a plot per se, with The Smashing Machine instead burrowing into the repetitious lives of Mark and his long-time girlfriend Dawn (Emily Blunt, doing mob wives drag in leopard prints and leather pants), a quasi-reformed party girl whose day-drinking starts to rankle Mark once he finally gets sober. Giving credence to the theory that “Benny is the funny one,” Safdie stages scenes that emphasize the tragicomic indignities of everyday life; structuring scenes to play out for a beat or two longer than expected, primarily to further allow air out of the balloon (e.g., Mark throws a violent temper tantrum at the house where he destroys a door, only to then resume bringing his dirty dishes into the kitchen). There’s an extreme verisimilitude to how the characters inhabit scenes. with the film largely eschewing actorly fireworks or quippy dialogue in favor of fumbling, uncomfortable realism. It’s as though The Smashing Machine’s intention was to recreate events exactly as they transpired rather than being streamlined and scrubbed of all imperfections.
Of course, that’s easier to do when you’re simply tracing over the genuine article. The Smashing Machine is directly inspired by the John Hyams documentary of the same name which premiered on HBO back in 2002. Safdie doesn’t merely reappropriate the doc’s impressionistic editing scheme and its percussive score, but, really, its entire structure. Key dramatic moments, like Kerr’s accidental overdose (and his subsequent brief stay in rehab), take place entirely off-screen, the implication being that since Hyams’ cameras weren’t able to capture these moments, then why should Safdie be able to take dramatic liberties (although that dogmatic approach to dramaturgy comes and goes when it suits the film). And then there’s the sheer amount of energy spent on depicting the twinned fates of Mark and his fellow fighter and all-around mensch Mark Coleman (played convincingly by actual mixed martial artist Ryan Bader), with the film spending nearly its entire runtime positioning a dramatically satisfying, loyalty-testing confrontation between the two men that history simply wouldn’t allow for.
However, the really uncanny bit is how many scenes, lines of dialogue, and even specific body language are recreated — verbatim. If one ever finds themselves questioning why a given scene that fizzles out to no real end or awkward exchange appears in The Smashing Machine (2025 edition), the answer, more often than not, is because it’s been lifted directly from the documentary. Perhaps the justification is that nothing can improve upon documented events and Safdie is trying to honor the ineffable qualities of Mark and Dawn’s tumultuous relationship. Perhaps there’s integrity in keeping embellishment to an absolute minimum while preserving the lumps, metaphorical as well as actual, that Mark took, as well as an acknowledgment that life doesn’t necessarily adhere to a three-act structure (or, more likely, that the Hyams’ doc has essentially disappeared into obscurity and few will even recognize how shamelessly this film is pilfering from it). Yet in practice it all plays like an intentionally stilted art-stunt perpetuated by the filmmaker; practically an inside joke simply to get Johnson to, for example, explain how certain brands of painkillers are difficult on his “tummy” or complain to Blunt that the cactus in the backyard of his Phoenix home hasn’t been pruned properly to resemble the one from the Roadrunner cartoon. It’s all decidedly less “eye of the tiger” and more “puppet show and Spinal Tap.”
Whatever misguided reasons might have motivated Safdie in conceiving of the film in this way, the director continues to demonstrate a genuine gift for bringing out the best in his actors. Johnson, a screen presence long prone to choosing roles that flatter his ego or else outright coasting on cocked-eyebrow charisma, disappears into the role of Mark in a way that transcends gimmick or mere mimicry. Johnson embraces the contradictory nature of a “hulking brute” who desperately wants to appease everyone, carrying his massive frame in a way that feels hesitant and even a little skittish, as though he’s been conditioned over a lifetime to allay the anxieties of others. It’s an intensely physical performance, but that extends beyond convincingly taking opponents to the mat or lifting weights; Mark appears uncomfortable in his massive frame, which also extends to the way he furtively walks, glancing to and fro, as he marches to the ring before a match. Johnson embodies the tricky dichotomy of being one of the strongest men alive who conceivably would flinch if he spotted a mouse in the kitchen; capturing Mark’s innate sensitivity and soulfulness without flattening him out into a saint or a figure worthy of ridicule (some of Johnson’s most impressive acting here is when he attempts to conceal how doped up he is while silently watching television on the couch). But whereas Hyams’ documentary understandably is hemmed in by a need to be objective, Safdie is under no such limitations other than those self-imposed. There’s no real reason for the film to be as arm’s length as it is toward its subject, other than it adheres to the filmmaker’s desire to create a carbon copy. After 123 minutes with Mark Kerr, we’re really no closer to understanding what drives him or whether he particularly enjoys competing in MMA, or even his life writ large. The Smashing Machine is portraiture without perspective.
DIRECTOR: Benny Safdie; CAST: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Ryan Bader, Oleksandr Usyk; DISTRIBUTOR: A24; IN THEATERS: October 3; RUNTIME: 2 hr. 3 min.
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