‘The Smashing Machine’ Is The First Great Dwayne Johnson Film

The following article contains minor spoilers for The Smashing Machine.

Going back to his days in the wrestling ring, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has always been a showman who is unapologetically loud and proud. Such has also been the case for his movies: since his film debut in 2001’s The Mummy Returns, he has appeared in no end of popcorn-friendly action movies that complement his ultra-charismatic, swaggering public image. His persona in-ring and on-screen are pretty much one and the same; he is a dyed-in-the-wool entertainer who will stop at nothing to entertain, like an addict hooked on applause.

So, sure. Make jokes about The Scorpion King or The Tooth Fairy, and meme him for the fact that his Black Adam failed to “shift the hierarchy of power” as promised before his DC entry infamously flopped. Talk about how Dave Bautista and John Cena are the superior wrestler-actors. You’re not entirely wrong. But when it comes to sheer work ethic and determination to leave an audience satisfied as they shuffle out of the multiplex, no one can deny Johnson’s near-unhinged commitment. It’s an obsession that served him well in the WWE, where he frequently made good on his promise to be the most electrifying man in sports entertainment. Similarly, it’s tough to argue with the box office he has generated over the last decade and a half.

All of which is why it’s easy to root for a Johnson renaissance in his post-Black Adam era, even as accusations have flown that he is cripplingly one-note. He has seldom been less than likeable, even if his capacious self-belief can sometimes come across as irritatingly hubristic. (Besides which, name me an A-list actor who isn’t at least a little narcissistic. It’s part and parcel with stardom.) Hence why eyebrows raised with news of The Smashing Machine a few years ago, and the prospect of an A24-backed collab with Benny Safdie—one part of the sibling duo whose Uncut Gems mined a career-best performance from Adam Sandler, another A-lister whose screen talents had long been overshadowed by low-brow popcorn flicks. The Rock in an indie sports drama, really? Could he blow away the recent critics with a performance that would amplify his humanity? In other words, could he stop being The Rock, and finally become Dwayne Johnson?

Well, his turn in The Smashing Machine is up there with Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler and, more recently, Brendan Fraser in The Whale as one of the great comeback performances, so it’s safe to say that the answer is yes. He plays Mark Kerr, a pioneering real-life mixed martial arts fighter who peaked in the late ‘90s as a staple of the UFC and Japanese promotion Pride Fighting Championships, where he earned the nickname from which the film’s title is borrowed (it was also used for an HBO documentary about Kerr in 2002). When the film begins in 1997, Kerr is one of the greatest fighters on the circuit. He’s never lost a match, dominating his competitors in speedy bouts with ruthless physicality, fixated on winning above all else.

Beyond the ring, he is soft-spoken, kind and gracious, your archetypal big friendly giant. Even so, at home, he endures a fractious, toxic relationship with his girlfriend Dawn (Emily Blunt). She struggles to stomach his obsession with work; in turn, he increasingly views her as an unhelpful distraction, which steadily builds towards resentment. (We get a glimpse at this early on when she makes him a protein shake with the wrong kind of milk, a minor error made with love. Mellow though he is, it must be hard to live with someone who is so capricious.) Meanwhile, he has personal foibles that make their home life that much more difficult, not least an addiction to prescription painkillers that leave him in a state of zombie-like blankness.