"With biceps and pecs bulging like balloons, pioneering Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and mixed martial arts champ Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) appears all but invincible in the ring, but turns oddly fragile and uncertain when he steps out of it. Benny Safdie's intriguing biopic joins the former college wrestler as he's making his MMA debut in Brazil in 1997, pulverizing his opponent with headbutts, kicks, and flurries of punishing punches, then worrying whether the poor guy's okay."
"Kerr's supportive best pal, sometime rival, and fellow MMA fighter Mark Coleman is played with persuasive compassion by former UFC fighter Ryan Bader, and his concerned trainer by Kerr's actual one-time trainer, former UFC fighter Bas Rutten. All three big, battered, dangerous-looking lugs tend to back down when confronted by Kerr's fiercely loyal girlfriend Dawn (Emily Blunt) who is a gum-chewing, manipulative, needy mess, but who is also reliably there for her man."
An action star mounts an Oscar bid with a skull-cracking biopic while a pop star uses a music-video reveal to push a new album. Cinemas are hosting three triumphant returns: a re-release of a massively successful epic fantasy, the comeback of a celebrated actor, and renewed attention to a long-dead dystopian author's pronouncements about the present world. The Smashing Machine centers on Mark Kerr, a pioneering MMA champion portrayed by Dwayne Johnson. The film shows Kerr's ring invincibility and outside vulnerability, recreates his 1997 MMA debut in Brazil, and depicts his narcotics and emotional struggles. Ryan Bader and Bas Rutten support, and Emily Blunt plays Kerr's emotionally complicated girlfriend.
Read at www.npr.org
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