AA film by Benny Safdie
With: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Lyndsey Gavin, Ryan Bader, Zoe Kosovic, Bas Rutten, Oleksandr Usyk, Paul Lazenby, James Moontasri, Yoko Hamamura
The story of legendary mixed martial arts and UFC fighter Mark Kerr..
Our rate: **
With The Smashing Machine, Benny Safdie delivers a portrait reminiscent of what Ferrara might have done in the 1990s, or what Aronofsky achieved rather successfully with The Wrestler at the beginning of this century: a tired hero, plagued by his demons, who tries to fight against himself, to fight at all, and who struggles to lead a fully successful life. It is a touching portrait that plays on human nature, with the hero amplifying it. The life instinct coexists with the death instinct, the urge to conquer and surpass oneself contrasts with the need for tranquility and gentleness, the search for affection and simple happiness. The hero with a big heart, who will not touch us with his tenderness, but will terrify us with his weaknesses, his failings. The dark side that constantly rubs shoulders with the light, the constant shift from one to the other, the threatening descent into hell that sporting success tries to make us forget. Benny Safdie’s aesthetic is less flashy than what he has done with his brother, allowing the film to strike a more accurate chord. Effective and relatively simple, Dwayne Johnson, transformed (we can talk about an Oscar-worthy role), slips perfectly into the gloves. The violent fight scenes are scattered throughout, with only the second half of the film giving significant weight to Rocky-style drama, in order to better establish the initial subject matter. In a way, everyone can identify with Mark Kerr. And Safdie himself seems to be a fan of free wrestling, the ancestor of MMA, which may be why he doesn’t hesitate to emphasize the violence of certain blows and shorten the fights. Above all, he seeks to modernize the values conveyed by Rocky, with the American dream giving way to the American nightmare. he opts for a more “at the same time” position, where the two go hand in hand, and where humans can both win and lose, where winning is no longer necessarily the ultimate goal. Here, Mark Kerr will not shout “Adrianne, I won”; on the contrary, the hardest fight for him will not necessarily be in the ring, but more on the domestic front. If he wants to be able to love and live in harmony, he will have to make a choice in order to hope to claim victory. Despite its limitations (simplicity, the weak writing of Emily Blunt‘s role, the absence of background or intellectualization, a certain tendency toward repetition rather than depth), The Smashing Machine offers enjoyable entertainment, carried along by jazzy ensemble music that gives way, in the background, to other more rock ‘n’ roll tracks in keeping with the film’s aspirations (Springsteen, Rolling Stones), which contribute to its good pace.
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