![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/image-2025-10-06T112056.582.webp?resize=656%2C1024&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nA popular criticism I\u2019ve heard about \u201cThe Smashing Machine\u201d is that it tries too hard to subvert expectations. I assume that this is a reference to the way the film follows mixed martial artist Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) on his journey not to a major win, but to his first professional loss. The film is building to a milestone in Kerr\u2019s life that may not be pleasant, but is undeniably important. But I came out of the film more concerned about another expectation the film subverted: the expectation that it not put me to sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The film opens in 1997 with Kerr\u2019s professional debut in a tournament in Brazil. College prodigy Kerr is a hulking, polished beast who makes short work of his shlubby opponents to win the tournament. He goes on to enjoy success in the early days of the Ultimate Fighting Championship before finding steady work in Japan\u2019s Pride promotion. And he never experiences a loss. He tells an interviewer that he can\u2019t even wrap his head around the concept of a loss. The easy joke would be to say that he can\u2019t wrap his head around a lot of things, but I\u2019ll be nice and say that he means this as a motivational tactic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In between fights, we learn about Kerr\u2019s personal life. He has a girlfriend named Dawn (Emily Blunt) and a best friend in fellow fighter Mark Coleman (Ryan Bader). He also has a drug problem, with an addiction to prescription painkillers. Perhaps more alarmingly, he has emotional and psychological issues. He\u2019s liable to break things when angry, as one might expect, but he\u2019s also likely to break down crying, which might be another one of those expectations that the film subverts. When it seems he\u2019s lost a fight midway through the film, he undignifiedly (though not without a legitimate point) complains about the officiating until the loss is taken off his record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The film builds to the biggest tournament of Kerr\u2019s life at the 2000 Pride Grand Prix. Will he earn yet another win and the all-important first loss will come later? Will he lose to his opponent from the controversial earlier fight? Will he lose to Coleman, who has been on a hot streak lately? Or will he lose to some presumed jobber in the first round? It\u2019s possible, given how distracted he is over a fight with Dawn. It was an incredibly stupid fight and I\u2019ve never been more sure that a character holding a gun isn\u2019t going to fire it, but it wouldn\u2019t be the first time someone had a serious breakdown over something stupid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the center of the film is Johnson\u2019s performance, which has been built up as Oscar-worthy. It\u2019s\u2026 fine. He\u2019s obviously put a lot of discipline into the physical aspects of the role (he\u2019s more buff here than he ever was in his WWE days), and he\u2019s willing to go to places emotionally that he doesn\u2019t usually go in his more popcorn-y fare. But I don\u2019t see an Oscar in Johnson\u2019s future here, for two reasons. 1) the movie has been a disappointment at the box office, whether or not it\u2019s fair to blame that Taylor Swift \u201claunch party\u201d for stealing its audience, and 2) the movie is incredibly boring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How did a movie that takes place in the bone-crunching world of MMA, starring an actor as exciting as Dwayne Johnson, and directed by Benny Safdie, one half of the team that brought us the 135-minute anxiety attack that was \u201cUncut Gems\u201d get to be so boring? That\u2019s the subversion of expectations that kills this movie, not anything it does with the story, but just the insistence that Mark Kerr is so inherently interesting that it\u2019s a treat to see him so much as get groceries. \u201cThe Smashing Machine\u201d was clearly made by people with a lot of reverence for Kerr, but the movie doesn\u2019t make me see why I should have the same reverence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grade: C<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Smashing Machine\u201d is rated R for language and some drug abuse. Its running time is 123 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bob Garver A popular criticism I\u2019ve heard about \u201cThe Smashing Machine\u201d is that it tries too hard to subvert expectations. I assume that this is a reference to… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"13","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMTBcL2ltYWdlLTIwMjUtMTAtMDZUMTEyMDU2LjU4Mi53ZWJwP2ZpdD02NTYlMkMxMDI0JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiTW92aWUgUmV2aWV3ICYjODIxMTsgVGhlIFNtYXNoaW5nIE1hY2hpbmUiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.Ggzr1AS-5KqcHjXyDKhU7xJvQckzutFVVZCNVn0m0aUMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":58444,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/image-2025-10-06T112056.582.webp","type":"image\/png"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[12377],"class_list":["post-58443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-movie-review-the-smashing-machine"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58445,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58443\/revisions\/58445"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}