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In the span of two days I watched two movies by the now-separated Safdie brothers: Marty Supreme, by Josh Safdie, and The Smashing Machine, by Benny Safdie. One is a dynamic, vibrant, anxiety-fueled piece of raw entertainment, and the other is the one starring Dwayne Johnson.
It’s a tale of two movies and a tale of two brothers, sadly, with The Smashing Machine proving to be a stunningly flat, uninspiring biopic.
One of the biggest sins the movie commits is that Benny Safdie never establishes why we should care about Mark Kerr, an early-days UFC fighter who helped grow the sport’s popularity before it went mainstream. I learned that from Wikipedia, because Safdie oddly drops the audience into the beginning of Kerr’s perilous decline, courtesy of a drug problem and other personal problems. You can see why Safdie was drawn to this part of Kerr’s life, seeking to avoid the typical sports drama formula (a formula that works incredibly well, by the way), and why Johnson signed on, because this role may be the closest he comes to an Oscar. But by not showcasing Kerr’s successes, we are stuck with the worst of the guy’s life without knowing how far he’s fallen.
Further, The Smashing Machine only smashes itself. Johnson is pretty good as Kerr, but game changing performance it is not. His depiction feels surface deep, a change in mannerisms and some facial prosthetics not enough to tap into what made this guy tick. That isn’t all on Johnson, though—the movie at large is against the ropes the entire fight, unable to land a punch or even a kick. The drama feels generic, the characters seemingly colorful but empty vessels. Emily Blunt looks the part but is stuck with a flailing role, and the rest of the supporting cast isn’t properly supported either.
The components are there to make The Smashing Machine a success, but unfortunately this Safdie brother misses with practically every swing.
Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.