"Above all, The Smashing Machine is a showcase for its star Dwayne Johnson, whose own history as a pro wrestler is an inextricable part of the screen persona he's created over the past decade and a half: genial action hero, reliable driver of fast-and-furious vehicles, and corny yet undefeatable dad. In choosing to play a darker, more volatile, less heroic character than any he's taken on before, Johnson reveals an intriguing new dimension of himself as an actor."
"The Smashing Machine is also the title of a 2002 HBO documentary directed by John Hyams, and Safdie adopts some of the visual conventions of nonfiction filmmaking to tell the true story of both films' subject, the ultimate fighting star Mark Kerr. The handheld camera (the cinematographer is Maceo Bishop) bobs and weaves around the ring, occasionally zooming in on the reaction of faces in the crowd."
Benny Safdie's first solo feature subverts conventional sports-biopic expectations by offering a nuanced character study of Mark Kerr, an early mixed martial arts star. The film avoids inspirational and bleakly tragic extremes, instead portraying a flawed but admirably dedicated athlete amid the sport's rapid evolution. Dwayne Johnson takes a darker, more volatile role that reveals a new dimension of his acting, though the script's strict avoidance of sentiment limits emotional expression. The production adopts nonfiction visual conventions and handheld camerawork by Maceo Bishop to create an intimate, eavesdropping sense of immediacy with a gritty, 1970s-influenced style. The result emphasizes atmosphere and character over melodrama.
Read at Slate Magazine
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