The Smashing Machine
A talented filmmaker's descent into the allure of the prestige.
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A sidebar on milieu and expectations
Before reviewing the new Dwayne Johnson film directed by Benny Safdie, I feel that a preface is necessary. I hate Mixed Martial Arts. I think they are silly, and represent the ugliest side of American “sports” culture. I have expressed this opinion many times over the years between my podcast, social media, and this blog. I don’t think combat sports should be lumped in with ball sports, of which I’m a great fan. One is art, the other is punishment. There is plenty of evidence that one could present about my bias against wrestling and its many variants, which some readers may even consider a worthy cause to dismiss my thoughts on this film. That being said, I was very excited to watch The Smashing Machine, for two reasons.
I often enjoy movies, television, and books which exist in a milieu that I detest. For example, I adore The Shield, The Long Gray Line, and Portnoy’s Complaint, despite my distaste for the police, the military, and sexual deviancy.
Benny Safdie has co-directed three movies that I think are great. The arrow has consistently pointed up over time, and all signs would indicate that this trend has the potential to continue without his fraternal partner.
With that being said,
The Rock – pardon , Dwayne Johnson – plays Mark Kerr, a legendary mixed martial artist who was an integral force in Pride, a Japanese promotion which ran parallel to the UFC. The relationship between organizations is generously described by Johnson as “an NBA-ABA situation.”
He smashes and occasionally gets smashed in return. He has a girlfriend (Emily Blunt, seemingly in a David O. Russell movie) that he gets mad at, but that’s okay, because she’s his girl. He also has a buddy, a colleague, a confidant, played by Ryan Bader with all the emotional nuance and dramatic capability that you would expect from a real fighter like himself. Due to the rigorous rehabilitation process of his fighting injuries, Kerr gets hooked on painkillers, and his already-rocky romance begins to crumble. We’ve already seen this movie, and we’ve seen it far too many times.
It’s one of those movies that will make your relatives and coworkers say things along the lines of, “Wow, they really made him look like the real guy,” which is of course the definition of a superficial takeaway. And yet, the cosmetic work may actually be the most impressive feat within this piece of strained seriousness. The superficial, the cosmetic, the veneer, the sheen of prestige is all that this Oscar-bait MMAelodrama has to offer.
To say that the arc is telegraphed, the tone one-note, or the thematics crudely spelled-out would be giving these narrative shortcomings far too much credit. It’s an absolutely punishing endeavor from the very first scene. The domestic drama is completely embarrassing. Perhaps the intention of the film is to make the viewer feel as if they were Mark Kerr in his first losing bout, being repeatedly pummeled in the skull by the knee of another large gentleman. I, for one, am not a fan of this feeling.
The de-evolution of cinematic craft from the previous Safdie work is present in any given scene, and it begs the question as to whether this is a result of being a larger-scale film with Oscar intentions featuring/co-produced by a mega-star, or if Benny was the lesser talent of his former brotherly partnership. Personally, I’ll opt for the former.
The cinematography is objectively “nice” looking, but also begs a question or two. The 16mm is digitally cleaned up (de-noised) enough for IMAX screens, and there is also 65mm IMAX stock used in a pivotal scene to distinguish fiction from “reality”, or perhaps give off a “larger than life” feel to the quasi-documentary grace note it captures. And yet, the distinction between small and large formats was much more narratively functional and aesthetically daring in a film like Damien Chazelle’s First Man. Why do some of these 16mm images look so god damn clean? What’s the point, if you’re also fucking around with IMAX gear? If you know my taste at all, you know that I am no fan of Damien Chazelle, but this is how low The Smashing Machine stoops, visually. Gone is the scrappy run-and-gun brilliance of Sean Price Williams (Heaven Knows What, Good Time), as well as the measured mastery of Darius Khondji’s frames in Uncut Gems.
One of the great qualities of Good Time, Uncut Gems, and Heaven Knows What was the consistent stream of idiosyncratic characters and performances that all felt firmly planted in the established reality of the films. From the early moment an overeager sports journalist prompts Johnson-as-Kerr to lay out a metric ton of thematic groundwork, it is painfully clear that we are in a different universe of script and performance, a different behavioral reality. Perhaps fans who grew accustomed to the stylings of past Safdie films should adjust their expectations in this department, because we are in The Rock’s world now.
Trading in the 0PN/Daniel Lopatin scores that carried the last couple of films for Nala Sinephro’s ambiance is a huge loss as well. While there are a few bright spots on the score, the multiple uses of Birdman-esque solo drum tracks during fights, begging critics to use the word “jazzy”, were cringe-inducing. The extended use of Springsteen’s “Jungleland” during the film’s climactic lovers’ quarrel is downright criminal. It’s an attempt at evoking Cassavetes that comes up much closer to Netflix-era Baumbach directing a music video. “My Way,” also featured in the trailer, scores a training sequence. The iconic track has the weight of nothing more than a placeholder, like it was hastily approved in post-production for a five-second sting in an insurance commercial, and not for a crucial scene in a major motion picture. That’s an accomplishment of bad filmmaking into itself. Maybe Benny would be happy directing commercials - I’m sure they pay better than indies! Pretty much all of the musical choices suck (on a filmmaking level), but there is a surprising Cleaners from Venus track at a pivotal moment, which I hope gets them some new fans.
And so it is in cinematography, performance, editing, music, thematic density and subtlety, and dramatic thrust that this film marks a decline from the previous work of Benny Safdie. What remains? A name, and a logo.
So glad to see someone finally point out that awful "My Way" needle drop!!
Huge disappointment. I went in as the libs would say “cautiously optimistic” but thought if Benny is doing it there must be a good reason. Boy was I wrong. Still confused as to why this was his choice of project, especially after learning there’s a doc that this is essentially ripped from. Seems like a weird Oscar play and the silver lion win is baffling.
Oh well, hope he learned cool stuff and goes back to weird The Curse type stuff