The Smashing Machine is an Extreme Fighting Biopic That Sits at a Strange, Subdued Remove

At the beginning of The Smashing Machine, director John Hyams’ 2002 documentary about turn-of-the-century ultimate fighting superstar Mark Kerr, the hulking subject is shown mid-bout in a typically brutal match, rendered in sobering slow motion. Over this, Kerr narrates his practical and emotional approach to the sport: “In the ring, my thoughts are pretty pure. I’m gonna hurt him before he hurts me. And if he hurts me, I’m gonna hurt him twice as bad.” Kerr’s ferocity is soon complicated by the poignant sensitivity and self-awareness found in both Hyams’ filmmaking and Kerr himself, who quickly admits, with prickly candor: “As far as what I was in it for … I don’t know why I’m in it.”

At the beginning of Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine—the narrative remake from the director usually seen working alongside his brother Josh—we’re treated to a similar scene. Safdie largely lifts the opening of Hyams’ doc, recreating it nearly word-for-word through the dramatized Kerr, played by Dwayne Johnson. He even filters the sequence through gauzy, VHS-style footage, affirming just how much The Smashing Machine owes to, well, The Smashing Machine.

This captures both the constraints and the strange potential at the heart of Safdie’s mixed martial arts biopic: He’s dramatizing a documentary that already lets you watch the story with the intimacy of an actual spectator. Safdie’s version will almost certainly be more accessible—Hyams’ film has long been relegated to obscure corners of the internet, or the occasional YouTube upload. But there’s an inherent tension in loving an object so much that you commit yourself to regenerating it with obsessive fidelity to the authenticity the original already provides.

That said, this new Smashing Machine does carve out its own legitimacy, both emotionally and visually. Johnson and his screen partner Emily Blunt, playing Kerr’s devoted yet often neglected girlfriend Dawn Staples, are the only “real” actors in the film. Other roles are filled by actual MMA and UFC professionals, such as Ryan Bader, who plays Kerr’s former trainer and fellow fighter Mark Coleman. Bit parts go to everyday people—at a TIFF Q&A, Safdie confirmed that one small speaking role was given to a man he spotted in a casino. Even Johnson grounds his performance in lived experience, drawing on his wrestling background to lend authenticity. Between his physical history in the ring and the prosthetic makeup that leaves him somewhere between himself and Kerr, Johnson delivers a bracingly naturalistic performance that blends both realities.

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Of course, more than anything else, it’s refreshing to see Johnson taking up a part that gives him some actual meat to chew on after resigning himself to Jungle Cruises and Black Adams for so long. Enough time has passed and Johnson’s squeaky clean movie star image has been so solidified that people may have forgotten what an organically talented actor he can be when given room to stretch. Kerr is a rich character for him: full of contradictions and internal turmoil.

What makes Kerr so compelling in the original documentary is his disarmingly affable nature—his friendly, unassuming voice, and his willingness to embrace emotion when not in the ring. Johnson leans into this, his pleasant disposition guiding the tone of Safdie’s film. The first thing we see him do is ask a referee in Brazil if his opponent, whom he just mauled, is going to be okay. Later, when a dubious older woman asks whether fighters hate each other in the ring, he replies with a definitive “absolutely not.” Mark doesn’t want to hurt out of anger; he’s in it for the art of the sport. That’s why he’s so distressed when he loses a bout due to an opponent’s illegal move—until he speaks to sponsors and gets it changed to a no-contest, but with no ill-will to his opponent. Of course he would want to kick him in the head. It’s only natural.

But Safdie isn’t all that interested in the actual action of this ostensible drama about one of the progenitors of mixed martial arts and the UFC. Even when shooting the matches, there’s a conscious choice made to keep outside of the ring, maintaining a literal distance from the element of the story that seems the least important to its emotional core. The brawls are few and far between, with a script that’s more interested in expanding the conflicts of Mark as a human being, such as his opiate addiction, rather than appending the story with additional action. This movie titled The Smashing Machine, that is set to be released on IMAX screens, is actually a quiet drama shot on 16mm about a gentle giant who has a compulsive need to fight, and to win.

This subdued mood is a shift away from Safdie’s most recent co-directed features Good Time and Uncut Gems, but The Smashing Machine still neatly fits into the same realm of vivid, occasionally moody character portraits. Cinematographer Maceo Bishop, who also shot the Safdie-starring The Curse, shoots with a realistic, unromantic sense of fidelity matching the grit of the story, and composer Nala Sinephro’s dreamy, warbly synth score captures that same ethereal feeling found in the more reflective moments of other Safdie projects.

Where Safdie does push beyond the documentary is in the intimate moments it could never capture, particularly between Mark and Dawn. The Smashing Machine seeks to expand the depths and turmoil of their relationship in ways only a narrative film could really do. Scenes to contribute to their development as a couple are added in, such as a brief sequence at a carnival, but the most notable extensions come from the pair’s blow-up arguments, as Mark’s myopic, single-minded goal to be an infallible champion in his field consistently means disregarding the feelings of his significant other. Even still, Dawn frequently gets lost within the film’s point-of-view perspective of Mark — it’s not quite a thankless role, but there is a thinness to Blunt’s part that comes with playing someone whose main function is instigating moments for Mark to lose his cool, such as a scene when he destroys a door in their house out of frustration.

Similarly, the film’s emotional throughline feels less satisfying than the documentary’s. Safdie never quite conveys how much of a phenomenon Kerr was at the time, nor the existential loneliness bred by the transactional nature of the sport. For example, the film omits that Kerr’s fighting in Japan was necessitated by the U.S. UFC ban, forcing him to essentially become a transplant for work. Instead, Safdie narrows his focus to small, intimate moments, relying on Johnson’s face to carry the emotional weight. Johnson can handle it, but there’s an aloof quality in watching Safdie arrange his subject like a diorama. The Smashing Machine is sensitive, texturally rich, and technically strong. But the melodrama of Mark Kerr—the real one—was somehow more potent when we saw it unfiltered.

Director: Benny Safdie
Writer: Benny Safdie
Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Ryan Bader, Bas Rutten, Oleksandr Usyk
Release date: Sept. 1 (Venice), Oct. 3, 2025 (U.S.)

Trace Sauveur is a writer based in Austin, TX, where he primarily contributes to The Austin Chronicle. He loves David Lynch, John Carpenter, the Fast & Furious movies, and all the same bands he listened to in high school. He is @tracesauveur on Twitter where you can allow his thoughts to contaminate your feed.