The Smashing Machine (Christian Movie Review)

Bolstered by excellent performances from Johnson and Blunt, and a nuanced exploration of masculinity and mortality, The Smashing Machine lands enough cinematic punches to overcome its familiar genre tropes.

About the Film 

The Smashing Machine sees Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s career come full circle as a wrestler turned actor turned actor playing a wrestler (or at least a fighter). There is a clear “return to his roots” dimension, but the film allows the charismatic actor to reach deep, showcasing his ability to be a serious, dramatic actor. If we’ve learned one thing about Dwayne Johnson, it’s to never count him out. Bolstered by excellent performances from Johnson and Blunt, and a nuanced exploration of masculinity and mortality, The Smashing Machine lands enough cinematic punches to overcome its familiar genre tropes.   

Based on a true story, The Smashing Machine depicts the early days of the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) and the pioneering fighters that catapulted it to its current heights of popularity. The film has a grainy texture and immersive aesthetic that makes it feel almost like an ESPN documentary. Even the fights are raw and visceral rather than cinematic and stylized cinematography. 

Despite checking many of the conventional boxes of the sports movie genre, director Benny Safdie resists delivering the familiar, high adrenaline, crowd pleasing spectacle, almost to a fault. He remains unwaveringly committed to keeping the film grounded. The most immediate comparable is The Iron Claw (2023). Both are gritty A24 films about a fighter in the early days of a fighting league, explore themes of masculinity and mortality, and are led by an actor making an against-type dramatic turn. Unlike the overwhelmingly tragic Iron Claw, however, The Smashing Machine is a bit more inspirational and hopeful. There is enough serious drama to warrant critical acclaim, but not likely to achieve its award aspirations.  

Already having an impressive physicality, Johnson underwent massive transformation for this role, yet proved to be more than muscle. Perhaps the highest praise I can give is that there were plenty of times that I forgot I was watching “The Rock” and saw only fighter Mark Kerr. His transformation is helped by facial prosthetics hiding some of his distinctive features, but it is his surprisingly nuanced and subtle acting that allows him to fully disappear into the role.  

Johnson may be the standout, but the film’s best performance belongs to Emily Blunt. She is as effective in dramatic shouting matches as she is in quiet moments. Silently, she emotes her character’s insecurities and hurts, feeling excluded and overlooked in a relationship with a man more at ease in a fighting ring than in his domestic life. Having previously teamed up for Disney’s Jungle Cruise (2021), Johnson and Blunt recapture their on-screen chemistry, playing a couple, whose relationship is equal parts toxic and aspirational, yet each character has their own moments to shine. 

At times, The Smashing Machine plays out almost like a secular version of a Christian faith-based film… if there were frequent profanity and no actual faith elements. Scenes of Mark Kerr (Johnson) going to rehab and getting sober, or his best friend delivering a heartfelt expression of love and support, have a surprisingly wholesome earnestness. But the film refrains from preaching, despite ample opportunities to do so. For example, the film touches on toxic masculinity, with the outwardly strong Kerr whimpering to his girlfriend, “I just want you to treat me like a man,” after throwing a childish tantrum. Moments like these could easily have become patronizing and cliched, but the film resists taking that easy path.

The Smashing Machine showcases rather than sermonizes, allowing the characters to wrestle with the themes, rather than reducing them to mouthpieces lecturing to the audience. Masculinity (toxic or otherwise) may be a current cultural buzzword, but the film delves into more universal and timeless themes of selfishness and fallen human nature (more on that below). 

In the end, The Smashing Machine is the cinematic equivalent of an unsung UFC contender. It may lack the flash to become a crowd favorite and can’t quite deliver the knockout blow needed to ascend to the level of a champion, but it holds its head high with hard-fought effort worthy of respect. Ultimately, it may be viewed as the turning point in Dwayne Johnson’s career, kicking off his dramatic acting era. But for now, this is his defining Hollywood moment.  

Embracing Brokenness  

The Smashing Machine is less the story of a UFC combatant fighting for a championship, and more a cautionary tale about a flawed man fighting against his pride and perfectionism, learning to embrace his mortality. In an opening monologue as Mark Kerr describes the thrill of fighting, he says, “At the end, you feel like a god.” Mark appears to have it all: the body of a god, the affection of an attractive and doting girlfriend, and career success. During a pre-fight interview, Kerr struggles to even intellectually comprehend the concept of losing, saying, “I don’t know. I’ve never lost.” When he finally tastes defeat, his life unravels.   

In many ways, Kerr’s career and his volatile relationship with Dawn (Emily Blunt) follow parallel tracks. Both are defined by the outward appearance of control and perfection attempting to shield the deeper brokenness and chaos. The Japanese art of Kintsugi (using gold to reassemble a broken vessel) becomes the defining metaphor for the film’s central theme: there is beauty in piecing together the brokenness of life. In a beautifully symbolic series of events, a Kintsugi pot gifted from Mark to Dawn is later shattered, only to be put back together by Dawn and gifted to Mark, this time using superglue rather than gold.

The film demonstrates that there is liberty in confronting and embracing our human fragility and releasing our need to be in control. The message is a wholesome one, although presented in a strictly human, rather than spiritual, way. In scripture, the Apostle Paul offered a more complete understanding when he declared: “‘But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-11).