The Smashing Machine (2025) Review

Title: The Smashing Machine
Year: 2025
Director: Benny Safdie
Country: US
Language: English

Produced by HBO, The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr (2002) was a landmark documentary released at a time when MMA (mixed martial arts) was still struggling for mainstream legitimacy. It’s almost hard to believe there was ever a “wild west” era for the sport, considering how massive MMA has become today. That’s what makes time-capsule stories like this so valuable; they capture the pioneers before the world caught up.

The Smashing Machine is a story based on the true events surrounding Kerr's life and rise through the MMA world which was unfortunately derailed by his opioid addiction.

The hype around The Smashing Machine was huge; there were standing ovations at Venice Film Festival, and plenty of talk about Dwayne Johnson in contention for a "Best Actor" Oscar for his performance. However, when  it finally hit theatres  the film bombed both critically and commercially. 

Johnson knows acting is more than putting on makeup, right? When you watch the original documentary, or even view real life interviews with Kerr on Youtube, you'll see that Rock doesn't sound, move, or behave like Kerr at all. The performance is essentially "Rock with makeup" rather than a full transformation. It's a really poor job. I doubt he'll even get a nomination. 

A large portion of the film's scenes are lifted directly out of the 2002 documentary, right down to word-for-word dialogue. Safdie's cinematographer, Marceo Bishop, aims for a gritty docu-drama look, but it's often at odds with the film's attempts to tell large-scale storytelling. The screenplay struggles as well. Safdie tries to juggle three stories  (addiction, love, and career) but two of them are resolved fairly abruptly with little payoff. 

The Smashing Machine could have been the next Raging Bull (1980) or The Wrestler (2008) but its execution failed to deliver, despite the hype surrounding it. Hopefully there are better films made about the same period of time, because the story of MMA is fascinating, and deserves to be explored by more creative people.