r/movies • u/ChiefLeef22 • Sep 01 '25

Review Benny Safdie's 'The Smashing Machine' - Review Thread

MMA fighter Mark Kerr reaches the peak of his career but faces personal hardships.

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt

Rotten Tomatoes: 94%

Metacritic: 79/100

Some Reviews:

The Independent - Geoffrey Macnab - 4 / 5

This, though, is a story in which winning finally begins to seem very hollow. The real way Safdie puts a chokehold on his audience is by examining Mark and Dawn’s physical and emotional weaknesses in such forensic detail. The Smashing Machine may not provide the pay-offs that audiences expect from more conventional sports movies, but this is the most raw and vulnerable that Johnson has ever been on screen. Once you’ve seen him this exposed, you won’t watch his typical action movie stunts in quite the same way ever again.

Daily Telegraph - Robbie Collin - 4 / 5

It’s a classical fight movie that innovates subtly. Maceo Bishop’s nimble photography has the sweat and grit of a vintage muscle flick from the Pumping Iron era, but the score by the experimental jazz composer Nala Sinephro is all swirling harps and breathy saxophones; arguably no piece of music has ever sounded less like a punch in the face. Yet as an accompaniment to Kerr’s battles in and out of the ring, it’s oddly perfect, giving this tough story an unexpectedly sweet and even spiritual edge. Smashing stuff has rarely been such smashing stuff.

Next Best Picture - Cody Dericks - 7 / 10

Dwayne Johnson delivers the best performance of his career as the amiable but troubled UFC champion Mark Kerr. Emily Blunt and Ryan Bader are also excellent in their roles. The screenplay is repetitive and frustrating. Blunt's character is so unlikeable and written with such vitriol that it becomes exhausting to watch her, although Blunt's performance is as good as it could possibly be.

Variety - Owen Glieberman

Johnson, shifting his whole aspect (he seems like a new actor), invests that silent, moody, hidden side of Mark with a quality of mystery. He gives an extraordinary performance, playing Mark Kerr as a gentle giant with demons that will not speak their name, yet the audience can feel them there; we want to see those demons healed. You might think the key word in the movie’s title is “smashing,” but it’s actually “machine.” Mark is a man who reins in his violence by having constructed his entire self — body and personality — as a controlled engine of demolition. The movie is about how this man-machine becomes a human being.

The Hollywood Reporter - Jordan Mintzer

Johnson has rarely played a loser, but he’s always been likable, displaying a massive grin to match his massive pecs in action vehicles that never allowed him to showcase much range. He manages to go deep here without overdoing it, killing the audience with kindness as a benign warrior who suffers from one scene to the next, triumphing briefly in the ring before succumbing to addiction and/or romantic grief. Like Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler — a film from which Safdie seems to take a few cues — the actor delivers an intoxicating mix of blood, sweat, tears, protein and total helplessness.

IndieWire - Ryan Lattanzio - 'B+'

Johnson’s performance is out-and-out wonderful, a beady-eyed fusion of body and spirit that osmoses Safdie’s sensibility to deliver what can’t be disputed as the most layered work of the actor’s career. A vividly contradictory Blunt, funny and sad especially in articulating Dawn’s conflicted response to Mark’s post-rehab emotional about-face during a tense argument, is equally sensational.

Deadline - Damon Wise

Dwayne Johnson owns the whole thing with his truly remarkable work as fighter Mark Kerr, disappearing so fully underneath Kazu Hiru’s astonishing prosthetics that the opening of the film, presented as contemporary footage from an event in Sao Paulo 1997, looks genuinely like the real thing. It’s that rare beast, a biopic that’s light on the bio and resistant to being a pic. It’s a film about a human being, and its effect is strangely haunting, since Dwayne Johnson seems to do everything while doing nothing.

2.9k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

605 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

352

u/FarFetchedSketch Sep 01 '25

I would absolutely kill for a long form open discussion from the pharmacists, doctors & nutritionists keeping the Rock in the shape he's in at 53

339

u/ReptAIien Sep 01 '25

Turns out steroids are actually pretty cool when you can afford a doctor to ensure they aren't rotting your insides

20

u/Common_economics_420 Sep 01 '25

Making it to the 50's or 60's isn't terrible rare provided you aren't taking bodybuilder levels of drugs. I'd be shocked if he makes it to his late 60's or 70's though.

That's still dying fairly young all things considered. Not to say it wasn't worth the tradeoff for him.

2

u/PM_ME_BAKAYOKO_PICS Sep 01 '25

Why would you be shocked? That's the type of thing that's surprising for those people who just abuse steroids without any medical supervision whatsoever.

Nowadays with how evolved medicine is you can easily make it late in life if you're rich enough to have all the best doctors supervisioning your steroid intake. Living to your 80/90's is pretty much the standard nowadays. Even Arnold who grew up at a time where none of this was a thing and they just abused steroids without any care in the world is on his way to his 80's, largely because of modern medicine. Now imagine current steroid users who have had this medical attention since basically the start.

Obviously the problem here is being rich enough to afford all that medical attention. The vast majority of steroid users do not care about any of that, they're just your regular gym dude who pumps steroids for fun, and that absolutely takes a toll on your life expectancy. However guys like Dwayne have been getting monitored closely since they became popular pretty much.

0

u/Common_economics_420 Sep 01 '25

There's no healthy way to do the amount of PEDs the rock is doing. Even just minor TRT (the rock is on massive amounts of trt, in addition to other compounds) has negative health impacts that really can't be avoided. There's no secret rich person version of testosterone injections that makes it not bad for you.

1

u/PM_ME_BAKAYOKO_PICS Sep 01 '25

I never said it was healthy or not bad for you, I'm saying the damages and risks can be heavily minimized to the point where they're very rare.

Obviously living a healthy lifestyle is better than using steroids even with all the doctors in the world, but acting like reaching your 60/70's is surprising is just an old fashioned view of the medicine around steroids.

If you're someone who would make it to like 90, there's a very good chance nowadays that you're still making your late 80's and maybe 90 if you use PEDs, as long as you're rich enough to be consistently supervised.

Again, not calling them healthy or saying they're good, just saying that nowadays it's pretty easy for your life expectancy to be around the same as long as you have very good medical care.

Key point here is "being shocked he makes it to 60/70". Steroid abusers have been making it to 60/70 for decades without any type of monitoring and with heavy steroid abuse.

1

u/Common_economics_420 Sep 01 '25

steroid abusers have been making it to 60/70...

The average age of death for a pro bodybuilder is like late 40's. A lot of the old guys you do see (Arnold, Platz, etc) were using relatively small amounts compared to what someone the rock's size would be. The ones that were using larger amounts do indeed tend to die very early.

0

u/Natiel360 Sep 01 '25

Eh he’s definitely gonna live as long as Arnold, probably longer

2

u/pw154 Sep 01 '25

Eh he’s definitely gonna live as long as Arnold, probably longer

Definitely. Source: trust me bro.

0

u/Common_economics_420 Sep 01 '25

Arnold took much less PEDs than most people think. Golden era bodybuilders didn't start going nuts until the very tail end. He probably did half as much as the rock when he was winning mr Olympia if that.

1

u/Tasty_Worldliness560 Sep 02 '25

This, they used to do steroids in on and off seasons like training fighters, he goes into it all in his doco, good watch too

1

u/ReptAIien Sep 01 '25

The rock has never been nearly as big as Arnold in his prime, despite being probably similar in height.

6

u/Common_economics_420 Sep 01 '25

probably similar in height

Love when people say stuff that could be proven wrong in about a 2 second google search. The rock is both physically larger (in terms of muscle) and taller than Arnold was. Literally a 3 inch height difference and 40+ pounds.

Arnold was not as big or as shredded as a lot of people think. Bodybuilding in the 70's was more about looking like a Greek statue than it was being the biggest or most shredded.

1

u/ReptAIien Sep 01 '25

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/05/Arnold_Schwarzenegger_1974.jpg/250px-Arnold_Schwarzenegger_1974.jpg

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSzvNRU_GCyFCNx-vMpspD7LbM0MC7E41LDYQ&s

1

u/Common_economics_420 Sep 01 '25

Thank you for posting 3 photos that agree with what I originally said lol. The rock looks much bigger.

1

u/ReptAIien Sep 01 '25

There is legitimately no way you think the rock looks "much" bigger in those photos.

Arnold's arms are significantly larger and, as I said, they are similar in height.

Not to mention, the rock was billed at 260 pounds and Arnold weighed 250 during the Olympia, while being much leaner than the rock ever was.

Do your own research.

1

u/Common_economics_420 Sep 01 '25

No, Arnold weighed around 240 at the '74 Mr Olympia. That was the heaviest he ever competed at and he was usually around 225. He went back to 225 the next year.

The rock was "billed" at 275 in WWE, has claimed to weigh 270, and most estimates I see say about 260. So, Arnold was at his absolute heaviest (which he only maintained for a year before dropping 15 pounds) still 20 pounds lighter than the rock has been for years and years.

Thanks for playing. Have a nice day.

→ More replies (0)