5 min to read
The Smashing Machine
How is The Rock's newest biopic?
Review: The Smashing Machine is the story of Mark Kerr, one of the pioneers of professional mixed martial arts fighting, the fame and success he has, and his personal struggles outside of the octagon, and what makes the movie inherently interesting is that the Rock was cast in the movie as a main character where he doesn’t just play the same persona he usually does. Not only is the movie trying to tell the story of Mark Kerr, you also get to see him played by Dwayne Johnson whose acting is so much better than any other performance he has given outside the WWE. Due to his size, the prosthetics used, and the great acting of the Rock, Mark Kerr was truly able to come to life.
What the movie does so well is dropping you into certain moments of Mark Kerr’s life, whether that be in the heart of fight, during training, or at home. Because you are just dropped into his life, you get to see the ups and downs he had personally, whether that be successes in his fights or the constant relationship issues he has along with an opioid addiction. By putting you so directly in his life the audience is really able to celebrate with Mark through the victories and mourn with him through the struggles. Through this connection you want to cheer for him more as he is winning and making better decisions for his life, but as he is making the poorer decisions in life, whether it be substance abuse, being in an incredibly unhealthy relationship, or slacking off on his training, you pray he is able to see the mess he is in and overcome those struggles. These scenes are extremely well shot and acted, allowing each of them to feel so real, allowing the audience to become immersed in Mark’s life.
Despite wanting to cheer him on throughout the course of the movie, where the movie faltered a bit is that there was not enough done with Mark’s character on a personal level to allow the audience to really appreciate him as an actual person instead of him as the character of Mark movie. What drives Mark to be a great fighter? What drove Mark’s initial opioid addiction, and made him want to overcome his addiction? Why does Mark stay in a relationship with his longtime girlfriend Dawn (Emily Blunt) even though it’s obvious they have an extremely unhealthy relationship? These are questions that I think should have been addressed throughout the movie that weren’t. Addressing these simple questions should have been done to not only instigate some semblance of a personal connection between Mark and the audience, but to also help the audience understand why it was so crucial to know his story. Since I never or truly understood the importance of the story being told, the story of Mark that was told felt more like a collection of interesting snippets and stories about him that took place during a certain time of his life These snippets are interesting individually, but there is not a compelling story being told between them.
What makes the issues within the “connected” story is that the sequence they are told in does not bring a sense of urgency or reward for watching them. In storytelling there is typically the trope of characters going through failure to eventually find success throughout the story; in other words, the trope of characters overcoming obstacles and struggles to achieve greatness. This movie in particular starts by showing Mark winning every fight he is in to eventually losing his first fight. Once he loses, he continually struggles to win again, losing nearly every fight shown afterwards, including his final fight. While I respect the fact this didn’t follow traditional storytelling by never seeing him succeed in the end, but by doing so I lost out on feeling satisfied and rewarded for having spent the time to learn his story.
This archetype is also similarly portrayed with Mark’s relationship with Dawn. They start off appearing to have this fantastic relationship, but over time you eventually see how broken and unhealthy it was. I understand the movie was expressing how extreme and stressful the relationship was at times, it was never enjoyable to watch a relationship turn from (what appeared to be) good, to bad, to awful. What made this even worse is how at the very end of the movie you find that Mark and Dawn got together again (and eventually married), to just get divorced a few years later.
Overall, I think this is a movie for you to decide for yourself if you want to experience it . There are scenes that are so well done you feel like you’re watching a recording of what actually happened in that situation, which is incredible to watch, but there were multiple points I was just asking myself “why?”. If you see the film, you may end up connecting with it in ways that I couldn’t. You also may want to see if the Rock can actually give a performance that outshines all of his past work. While I may not have expressed it well above, the individual moments of Mark’s life we do see are extremely enjoyable and extremely well acted, truly immersing you in all of the parts of his life that are shown. The movie just lacked a compelling story to make each of the compelling and immersive scenes become an extremely enjoyable movie.
Rating: 3/5
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