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The Smashing Machine review: Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson is Oscar-worthy in his new film

The poker online for money usawrestler turned Hollywood superstar gets vulnerable in this bruising indie drama about mixed martial arts fighting. He's "touching" and could well be nominated for awards.

Dwayne Johnson may not use his professional wrestling nickname on his film credits, but every time he's on the big screen, it still feels appropriate to call him The Rock. That's how sturdy he seems to be. It's not just that his heroic characters can shrug off punishment that would pulverise the rest of us, it's also that they grin pearly white grins while they're doing so. Johnson's Hollywood career is built on the impression he gives of being indestructible. The Smashing Machine, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival today, is our first opportunity to see that The Rock can crumble.

An arthouse dramatisation of a 2002 HBO documentary, this sensitive film tells the true story of Mark Kerr, a mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter who was a pioneer of the bloodily violent sport in the years before its champions were rich and famous. Johnson is probably the only actor alive who could play Kerr convincingly: his colossal, sculpted bulk fills the screen, and because he has a full head of hair for a change, his towering appearance raises the question of why Marvel used CGI for the Hulk in the Avengers films. If they had just painted Johnson bright green, they could have saved themselves a lot of bother.

As mountainous and, well, rock-like as its protagonist looks, though, this downbeat indie film is about someone who can be hurt, both physically and emotionally. In the opening sequence, set in 1997, Kerr radiates youthful confidence as he bashes his opponents' faces to pulp. ("A knee to the face," marvels a commentator. "A magnificent knee to the face!") But when The Smashing Machine jumps forward to 1999, the years of violence have already taken their toll – and not just on his newly mangled ear.

Because MMA isn't yet a sensation in the US, Kerr does much of his fighting in Japan, where he feels lonely and alienated: some scenes are redolent of Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, not that anyone is likely to mistake Johnson for Bill Murray. The slog of travelling between Japan and his home in Arizona leads to arguments with his girlfriend Dawn, played by Emily Blunt (the film is quite a contrast with Johnson and Blunt's last team-up, Disney's Jungle Cruise, in 2021). And he sweet-talks pharmacists into giving him stronger and stronger drugs, partly to dull the agony of all those punches to his head, and partly to approximate "the highest of highs" he feels when he wins a bout. He would be finished without the loyal support of his best friend Mark Coleman (real-life MMA star Ryan Bader), but as both of the Marks are MMA fighters, there is always the prospect that they will have to assault each other in the ring sooner or later.

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Closer to Raging Bull and The Wrestler than a conventional Hollywood sports film – although not quite as gruelling or as powerful as either of them – The Smashing Machine is written and directed by Benny Safdie, who, alongside his brother Josh, co-directed Good Time with Robert Pattinson and Uncut Gems with Adam Sandler. He has some experience, then, of taking major Hollywood stars and presenting them in the least flattering possible light. Johnson is impressively vulnerable when Kerr is losing control of his life, and scarily unstable when he bickers with his Dawn – and he does plenty of bickering. The couple's domestic disputes become so regular that Kerr eventually puts more energy into his battles at home than into his battles in Japan, despite telling an interviewer that he has to be as focused as a "laser beam" to win.

Director:?Benny Safdie

Cast:?Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Ryan Bader

Run-time:?2hr 3m

Release date: 3 October 2025

Don't be surprised if Johnson is Oscar-nominated. His Hollywood blockbusters have raked in billions of dollars, so this serious, nuanced role gives his peers an obvious chance to reward him for his lucrative career. Not that the film is a complete departure for him. It's hardly revelatory to see him playing a brawny sportsman who started out as a wrestler, and he has always been a skilled performer, so it isn't a shock that he can burst into tears or sink into a narcotised trance. It's also true that The Smashing Machine isn't as nerve-janglingly frenetic as Safdie's previous work, so Johnson doesn't have to go to the same hellish extremes that Pattinson and Sandler did in Good Time and Uncut Gems.

All the same, it's touching to see this icon of athleticism and positivity in a melancholy film which asks whether training for a championship is really worth the effort. Kerr is never described as The Smashing Machine in the dialogue, so we're left to ponder whether the name refers to him, or to the brutal sport he gave so much to, or to life itself.

★★★★☆

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