Few directors working today carry the cult credibility of Benny Safdie. Alongside his brother Josh, he redefined cinematic anxiety with Good Time and Uncut Gems films which turned desperation into adrenaline. Those movies were propulsive and jagged, steeped in urban chaos and moral collapse.
So when A24 announced that Benny would helm The Smashing Machine alone, expectations soared. Add Dwayne Johnson in what promised to be his most vulnerable role yet, and a certain mythology took root before the first trailer even dropped.
The result, now fully realized, is not the adrenaline rush many expected. Instead, it’s a surprisingly quiet story about addiction, exhaustion, and the fragile architecture of masculinity.
Safdie’s method remains recognizable: restless cameras, raw intimacy, and the discomfort of close-ups that linger too long. But what defined his earlier work momentum seems curiously absent here.
The film follows real-life UFC fighter Mark Kerr during a turbulent three-year stretch from 1997 to 2000.
Known as “The Smashing Machine” for his dominant fighting style, Kerr faced personal demons far more punishing than his opponents: painkiller dependency, volatile relationships, and the impossible task of reconciling identity with violence.
Safdie’s decision to focus narrowly on this period gives the movie precision but not propulsion. We see Kerr’s rise and near-collapse, yet the film rarely lets us feel the beating pulse beneath those events.
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Still, Safdie’s sensitivity as a storyteller emerges in his portrayal of human fragility. His direction often feels intimate, even tender.
The problem is that his carefully composed realism drains the kinetic energy expected from a story set around cages and combat. The Smashing Machine is neither a sports spectacle nor a character psychodrama; it floats awkwardly between the two, unsure which fight it wants to win.
Dwayne Johnson’s Deepest Performance Yet
If the film falters in pacing, Dwayne Johnson’s performance gives it gravity. Gone are the trademark eyebrow raises and polished toughness that defined his blockbuster persona.
Here, Johnson’s stoic shell is stripped to pain and weariness. Mark Kerr is a man who has mastered physical domination but cannot control what’s happening inside him.
Johnson commits to the vulnerability the role demands. There’s an unguarded quality to him that feels startlingly new a weariness in the eyes, a fragility in the posture, and an occasional slur of speech that hints at addiction’s slow invasion.
He rarely raises his voice but conveys immense tension through subtle tremors. For an actor known for invincibility, this subdued portrayal accomplishes something critics have begged for: sincerity without spectacle.
In the quieter moments, such as Kerr’s conversations with his trainer or his late-night confessions to a documentary crew, Johnson does his finest work. He finds humanity not in triumphs but in doubt.
Yet while his performance is strong, it’s trapped within a film hesitant to follow its star into the darker corners suggested by his portrayal. The camera observes him but rarely challenges him, and so the transformation we witness feels partial rather than profound.
Emily Blunt, as Kerr’s girlfriend and eventual wife Dawn, plays the emotional counterpoint. Her character is written with minimal backstory but with rich undercurrents of frustration. In one fierce argument, Dawn screams that Kerr “doesn’t know her,” a line that sums up both their relationship and the film’s limitation.
We never see Dawn as her own person; we see her through the haze of Kerr’s crisis. Still, Blunt’s natural warmth and bite carry through, giving the film emotional texture whenever she’s on screen.
Their scenes together, framed by cramped domestic spaces and lit by the yellow ache of Arizona sunsets, offer the film’s truest pulse.
Safdie’s handheld style works best in those enclosed moments: the scrape of dishes, the quiet after shouting, and the way anger hardens into routine. In those fragments, The Smashing Machine finds the same bruised humanity that made Safdie’s earlier work unforgettable.
Fighting Without Fury
It’s striking how little actual combat takes place in The Smashing Machine. Safdie chooses observation over spectacle. The fights are handheld and claustrophobic, stripped of cinematic glamour. We feel exhaustion, not adrenaline. When Kerr takes a punch, the blow lands with silence rather than sound.
This approach is thematically consistent. Violence here is endurance, not power, but the film’s refusal to escalate leaves the audience waiting for tension that never arrives.
Safdie and cinematographer Drew Daniels build a visual palette of sweat-stained realism. We see muscle contorted in slow agony, faces lit by the dim glow of locker rooms, and hotel corridors empty except for the echo of Kerr’s labored breathing. It’s all beautifully composed, yet the choices also create distance.
The visceral grit that defined Uncut Gems is replaced by stillness. What might have been electrifying instead feels sedate.
By the final act, Kerr’s downward spiral through addiction and fractured identity carries emotional weight but little cinematic momentum.
The film mirrors his fatigue too literally: pacing turns sluggish, scenes stretch without escalating. The realism that once heightened tension now dulls it. For a movie about professional fighting, there’s little sense of struggle beyond introspection.
Even so, The Smashing Machine has moments that pierce. One comes during an interview sequence where Kerr admits to losing control over both his body and emotions. Johnson’s voice falters, eyes glassy, revealing an actor tapping into something uncomfortably personal.
Another arrives when Dawn gently bandages his hands, a domestic ritual framed like an act of care and resignation. Such moments show what Safdie aimed for: a study of love and pain under the armor of aggression.
A Contender That Never Hits Its Knockout
As a sports biopic, The Smashing Machine wants to redefine what victory looks like. It’s not about belts or glory but survival, about learning to live after self-destruction.
That premise has the potential for greatness, especially in Safdie’s hands. Yet his filmmaking caution keeps the story from reaching full emotional intensity. It’s good, often thoughtful, but seldom exhilarating.
A24’s faith in the project is obvious. It’s the studio’s most ambitious production yet, with cinematic scope and prestige aspirations. But its polish works against its subject.
Kerr’s story is messy, volatile, and unresolved, while the film surrounding him remains too controlled. The editing lingers politely when it should bruise. The score swells gracefully when it should sting.
For Dwayne Johnson, this is undeniably a breakthrough. He finally slips the armor of stardom to reveal a man quietly crumbling under his own strength. His performance alone justifies the film’s attention. For Benny Safdie, it’s a transitional work, restrained and contemplative, but missing the pulse that made his joint projects so distinct.
There’s a powerful film buried inside The Smashing Machine: one about pain as performance, fame as burden, masculinity as cage. What reached the screen, however, feels too disciplined for its own good. It throws punches with precision but without fury. You can admire the control but still wish someone had cut loose.
Beneath its flaws, The Smashing Machine remains a curious addition to both Safdie’s and Johnson’s careers. It proves the actor can be fragile and the director can be patient. Yet neither unleashes the full strength they clearly possess. The result is a film that hits hard in the moment but never quite lands the knockout it promises.
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