Some films don’t know what they want to be – and that’s certainly the case with Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine, a film that continuously struggles to find its footing. There’s a lot of fighting on the ring, a lot of blood, sweat and wounds, a lot of grand statements about winning and losing but little narrative consistency and a much less-than-desired impact. While lacking heart and gravitas, what The Smashing Machine truly lacks is coherence.

Not all movies, especially sports movies, need to follow the expected formula; the rise of an underdog who defies all odds and wins big at the end, offering a glimpse of hope for viewers wishing to enjoy an uplifting, feel-good success story that reminds them that dreams can indeed come true. Machine doesn’t follow that formula entirely, and that would have worked if the screenplay had been focused enough to be able to answer the question of what story it wants to tell. Watching the film, you can’t help but wonder if it was made with the intention of winning accolades more than offering a rich portrait of one of the first pioneers of free-style wrestling back in 1997. There are big, sporadic dramatic moments here and there, long scenes of pulpy wrestling showdowns, but it all feels too packaged, as though the filmmaker wanted to include a number of ingredients without offering any insight or depth to the final product.

Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) is an MMA fighter who simply doesn’t know what it means to lose. In the film’s opening sequence, a sports journalist sits down with the champion asking him about what it feels like to be on the ring. For Kerr, being on the ring offers him a venue to prove his superiority, confirm his power and achieve everyone’s admiration. It’s a Godly feeling, he explains, and it’s addictive. Kerr’s addiction doesn’t stop at that tempting sensation to prove he’s undefeatable as we witness his substance abuse and its impact on his personal affairs. While his career is at a strong point, winning matches right and left, his relationship with his girlfriend Dawn (Emily Blunt) is complicated and strained. Kerr frequently struggles with Dawn’s temperament and strives to prove, at every opportunity possible, that he’s still boss. This dynamic becomes increasingly abusive for Dawn and toxic for the couple, as they seem to be unable to match each other’s pace and style of communication.

Dawn’s perspective, just like the character itself, is underwritten to the point that the film seems merely interested in Kerr’s perspective. In the scarce moments in which Dawn gets to convey what she’s going through – a mix of fear, adoration and anxiety caused by her abusive, power-hungry, ego-centric boyfriend, the film gets more interesting, offering rare moments of freshness, only to then return to flat scenes of ring fights that achieve next to nothing in terms of impact. It seems as though the narrative ambition here is so tame, toothless and limited to the extent of showing a step-by-step rise and fall of an underrated champion who had to enter rehab and get back on track and in the process deal with professional loss and the price you have to pay when you want to be an icon, only to be let down by your own mistakes.

There isn’t much to dissect and interpret in the film, perhaps because it’s content with being a straightforward film that doesn’t inspire passion but nonetheless pleases its crowd with a story that is digestible enough to ensure its accessibility and commercial prospects. In that regard, the film mostly succeeds, although technical credits (an oddly modern cinematography that doesn’t feel like this is a story that took place 25 years ago, and a score that needed more nuance) don’t serve the film much.

In the titular role, Johnson tries his best to deliver a different performance than his usual action/comedy fare, but the film doesn’t offer him a real chance to showcase his dramatic chops. Even in the scenes where Kerr supposedly breaks down, Johnson covers his face with his hands, preventing us from really experience a different side of him as an actor. Blunt tries her best with her thinly constructed character and offers us moments of vulnerability and torment but the script seems much keener on Kerr’s perspective, rendering Dawn as an accessory rather than a fully-fledged character. It’s a shame because a superb actress like Blunt could have made the film more resonant, had Safdie developed the drama as much as he had focused on the sport.

Certain to have its champions, particularly mainstream audiences who may relate to Kerr’s personal and professional struggles, The Smashing Machine unfortunately is too safe and plain to truly pack a punch.

Grade: C

This review is from the 2025 Venice Film Festival where The Smashing Machine had its world premiere. A24 will release the film theatrically in the U.S. on October 3.

Mina Takla

Mina Takla is a foreign correspondent for AwardsWatch and the co-founder of The Syndicate, an online news agency that offers original content services to several film brands including Empire Magazine’s Middle East edition and the Dubai Film Festival. Takla has attended, covered and written for multiple film festivals online including the Dubai International Film Festival, Abu Dhabi Film Festival, Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Annecy Film Festivals. He has been following the Oscar race since 2000 with accurate, office-pool winning predictions year after year. He writes monthly in Empire Arabia, the Arabic version of the world’s top cinema magazine and conducts press junkets with Hollywood stars in the UK and the US. He holds a Master’s degree in Strategic Marketing from Australia’s Wollongong University and is currently based in Dubai, UAE.

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