The Smashing Machine

A lot of people all over the world watch sports in so many different categories. It doesn´t really matter what you enjoy, everyone have their own favourite sport ( unless you hate sport of course, some people do ). I can watch pretty much all kinds of sport on TV or go to a hockey game, soccer game, basketball game just to do something different in a sport arena. But there are two sports i do find very boring and can barely watch. For example here in Sweden we have a horse sport competition called Travsport ( known as Trotting sport in England ). Basically horses are running in circles with a man controlling them on a wagon ( i don´t even care what these wagons are called ). I have visited 2 races of trotting sport here in Sweden and holy crap that was boring. Im sure this is a fun sport if you love horses, i do like the animals for sure but this sport competition is not for me. Another sport i find boring is watching British Darts Chamipnship. I tried watching it while i was on vacation in London ( they used to have it on British sport TV channels in my hotel room ) but i had to switch over to some British crime show instead. So i prefer watching martial arts instead or boxing, my kind of sports. Biographical sport films can be interesting if it is about someone fascinating or tell the story of a historical sport event. There are quite a lot of different biographical sport films to choose between, but if you should see one specific title i would recommend the 2023 drama sport film The Iron Claw from director Sean Durkin. This film is based on the true story of The Von Erich family, an American professional wrestling family who struggled with a lot of personal tragedies where the whole family seemed curse. Really good acting performances in this film, especially from actor Zac Efrom as the brother Kevin Vin Erich and the family father Jack Von Erich ( played brilliant by Mindhunter actor Holt McCallany ). A very tragic film how one career addicted father can destroy a whole family, just to please his own needs. This is a must watch on physical media or digital. I finally got a chance to sit down and watch the sports biographical film known as The Smashing Machine that i heard some positive reviews from last year, especially from OCP Communications ( do check out his review of his film on YouTube ). The biggest talk was of course the performance of Dwayne Johnson looking very different physically than we are used to see him. The film flopped at the box office but have been nominated for several awards this year. Is this a film you should see or is The Smashing Machine not as good as i was hoping it would be?

In the year of 1997, MMA fighter Mark Kerr ( Dwayne Johnson ) is doing an iuterview after his fight tournament in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He did really good winning each match and things are looking promising for Mark. In Birmingham, Alabama it is time for his next fight Moti Horenstein which ends with Mark winning on TKO. 2 years later Mark is still trying to keep his MMA career going. But his addiction to opioid is getting worse and all of this is coming out on his girlfriend Dawn Staples ( Emily Blunt ) including affecting his fighting career. He needs to end his opioid addicton or his career as an MMA fighter will be over for good.

I have not personally seen the 2022 documentary film The Smashing Machine: The Life And Times Of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr, so i only knew this film is inspired by the documentary film telling the story of Mark Kerr about his personal life and his career in MMA. So i can only talk about the film adaptation without comparing the documentary film, and give my own opinion if the film succeed telling an interesting story. Before i get into the performance of Dwayne Johnson as the main character i have to talk about the time period where this film is supposed to take place between. Specifically from the year 1997 and up until the early 2000´s and i have to say they did a great job capturing the time period correctly. The film looks like it would take place during these years with the costume design, set designs, even smaller details such as artifacts we used to have back in those days. This have always been important to me if you want to tell a story from a certain time period. The MMA fights in this film are brutal, look good on camera and you can genrally feel that the main character Mark Kerr is in a lot of pain. Not only from the fights but mentally struggling as well with addiction to painkillers. The Smashing Machine manage to tell a powerful story of addiction and how this affect everything in your career, your ordinary day life and how it destroys your mind and soul. This is where we get in to the performance of Dwayne Johnson as the MMA fighter Mark Kerr. This is without a doubt the best acting performance i have seen Dwayne Johnson do in his career, especially when he breaks down completely where he can´t take it anymore. To see Dwayne Johnson be able to be so vulnerable on the big screen is powerful, he can be a good actor with the right script and the right character. I have to say actress Emily Blunt as Mark´s wife Dawn also gives a strong performance. The scenes where this married couple fight during Mark´s addiction problems feel very realistic and im pretty sure people who struggled with addiction, or know a family member who have been through this will recognize the behavior pattern of an addict. I have to mention MMA fighter and actor Ryan Bader who surprised me, hes actually a good actor. in this film As a biographical film of Mark Kerr this is a well made film, and does a good job telling the story of this struggling MMA fighter. Even if i was more affected emotionally by the 2023 wrestling film The Iron Claw than The Smashing Machine, this is still a film you should see. Director Benny Safdie ( who directed the brilliant Adam Sandler film Uncut Gems on Netflix ) bring out the best acting performance of Dwayne Johnsons career so far, and that alone is a great achievement. Support this film on physical media or digital, and let´s hope Dwayne Johnson win a Golden Globe Award this year ( he is nominated in the category best actor ) and hopefully get more people to discover The Smashing Machine.

Rating: DDD