In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Mark Kerr is one of the fighters in the up-and-coming Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Continuing to take on stronger opponents, his overreliance on drugs distances him from his girlfriend, who is battling demons of his own. Will Kerr be able to gain control of himself, and triumph at a forthcoming martial arts event in Japan, with life-changing money on the line?
Can you a remember a period in time where the UFC was not the juggernaut of MMA action all the world round that it is today? Let alone that there was a time when people were trying to have it banned for being “too violent?” Just shy of three decades ago, that was the world. And the participants weren’t the “named” celebrities they are today. That’s part of what makes THE SMASHING MACHINE an interesting film – it predates UFC being what it is today.
THE SMASHING MACHINE includes a great performance from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, quite possibly the best I’ve seen in the man’s career, and a powerful supporting role from Emily Blunt. While it does feel a bit too “surface level” at times and doesn’t go as deep as I’d like, combined with some hard-to-overcome sports movie/biopic cliches, the performances of the leads easily knock out any shortcomings of the final product.
Dwayne Johnson is someone I first became aware of when I saw him wrestling, and as the whole world’s seen over the years, he’s launched himself into an acting career, taking on dramatic and comedic roles with equal vigor. Hell, I was watching this guy wrestle on TV back when it was still WWF (rather than WWE) and he was still going by “Rocky Maivia!” Having the wrestler-turned-actor portray a fighter certainly seems like solid enough casting; the man has equal experience in both fields. The results speak for themselves and must be seen to be believed.
The movie also does a brilliant job capturing the time period in which it’s set, when UFC/MMA were new things, and ones that weren’t widely accepted. Even from the get-go, we as an audience see rules and policies in MMA having to change due to their overly violent nature. We take for granted nowadays that the UFC and MMA in general are now viewed and accepted, but this one does a solid job showing a time period where that wasn’t always the case. The looks and sounds of the time period in the late 90s and early 2000s is handled exceptionally well too, truly taking us back in time a quarter century.
If there’s one fault to THE SMASHING MACHINE, it’s that the movie just doesn’t go beneath the surface too often. How did Mark meet his trainers and his girlfriend? What caused him to become such an insecure man? What caused his girlfriend’s insecurities? How did he become interested and get started in fighting? These are among the questions the film sadly doesn’t answer or delve too deep into. Still, the performances from Blunt and Johnson are top notch, and certainly sell the film.
THE SMASHING MACHINE isn’t quite a technical knockout that gives us a super in-depth story and answers every question, but it at least wins by decision thanks to Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson giving their all from start to finish; hopefully they two will receive some well-deserved award nominations. It’s not perfect, but there’s certainly enough here to merit a recommendation.