What’s interesting about Benny Safdie’s first feature film
without his older brother Josh, the Silver Lion winning biopic of still living
MMA fighter Mark Kerr starring Dwayne Johnson in his most transformative role
yet, is that it forms a loose triptych with Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler as
well as Sean Durkin’s The Iron Claw in terms of gritty realistic
documentary-styled pulling back of the curtain on the physical combat arena of
sports entertainment. Similarly stylized
with grainy 16mm cinematography by Maceo Bishop that sometimes alternates
between 65mm for select shots and featuring an innovative electronic score by
Belgian musician Nala Sinephro reminiscent of Mica Levi’s score for Zola,
Safdie’s standalone effort as a director follows in those pictures’ footsteps
while rolling out the red carpet for its publicly troubled and somewhat
disgraced leading man.
It’s the performance
of Dwayne Johnson’s career in a thoroughly director-driven piece that feels
like 1970s New Hollywood by way of Mike Figgis.
Trouble is somehow the film itself, in chronicling the trials and
tribulations of Mark Kerr’s life, never finds the hypnotic forward momentum of
not only the previous sports entertainment dramas but of the Silver Lion
winning director’s oeuvre as well.
Something is amiss here and for once its not the fault of The Rock
despite sadly shaping up to be another commercial failure for him.
It is 1999 and Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson as well as the real
Mark Kerr cameoing near the end) is at the height of his success in Japan as an
Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter.
Living at home with his girlfriend Dawn (Emily Blunt), their
relationship is on the rocks ready to erupt over the slightest pin drop with
both characters dealing with their own subsets of addiction. Taking coaching for the next fight by mixed
martial artist Mark Coleman (Ryan Bader) amid substance abuse in between meets
with Japanese officials over his wages, he suffers a great setback by brutally
losing a fight to Igor Vovchanchyn (played by real life Ukrainian MMA champion
Oleksandr Usyk). Crashing into an overdose,
he enters rehab which further weighs on his deteriorating relations with Dawn
and eventually winds up accepting further coaching from Bas Rutten (played by
himself). Mark seems to be back on track,
getting into shape and winning a fight under Bas’ direction, only for Dawn to reenter
Mark’s life with the twosome once again feeding off of each other’s
self-destructive tendencies.
Undergoing a remarkable transformation
physically with the advent of makeup effects work, Johnson disappears
completely into the role and clearly pours his heart and soul into his
performance. Emily Blunt also goes the
full distance with Johnson amid their respective downfalls with tense dialogue
exchanges as Johnson destroys set pieces.
The Neorealist interspersal between movie people and very real
professional fighters with years of experience behind their belts will remind
many of Aronofsky’s The Wrestler and the rougher, as Roger Ebert termed
it, ‘meat-and-potatoes filmmaking’. And
yet the film’s biggest drawback stems from the very thing now harming the Coen
Brothers’ brand of splitting up and going solo.
For whatever reason in spite of all the ingredients and elements being
in place, the urgency felt in the Safdies’ joint exercises feels a bit lost and
meandering without older brother Josh leaning in on the proceedings.
But compared to Good Time and even
more so with Uncut Gems, the hypnotic urgency driving those films simply
isn’t present in The Smashing Machine.
For as much blood, sweat and tears is plainly visible, the engine
driving the steamship forward never fully opens up to or achieves greatness and
in spite of the spectacle of occasional 70mm it felt by design more attuned to
the televised HBO Max approach to storytelling.
Yes I’m happy for Benny Safdie’s career path and for Dwayne Johnson
giving, yes, a career best performance but Benny needs to reunite with Josh
fast!
--Andrew Kotwicki