‘The Smashing Machine’ review: Mixed martial arts drama slips out of grasp

Ahead of a mixed martial arts competition in Japan, a journalist asks American fighter Mark Kerr, can you imagine what it’s like to not win a bout? Having come off a series of victories, Kerr struggles for words. Then he loses.

The shock of defeat, plus the sheer physical effort involved in the sport, take a toll on Kerr (Dwayne Johnson). His addiction to painkillers messes with his head as well as his relationship with his girlfriend Dawn (Emily Blunt). Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine follows Kerr down the chute and then on his upward journey towards the acceptance of vulnerability.

Safdie’s first solo project after co-directing films with his brother Josh Safdie is based on John Hyams’s 2002 documentary of the same name. Several scenes in Benny Safdie’s movie are directly from the documentary, such as a conversation in a hospital waiting room in which Kerr explains just how brutal and risky mixed martial arts can get. This is borne out by rough-and-tumble battles in the ring, in which the fighters go all out to defeat their opponents.

For all the bashing and grasping, The Smashing Machine is a tidy, uninvolving version of Kerr’s blood-and-guts journey. Without the elements to distinguish it from other films of this type, the...

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