The Smashing Machine: Dwayne Johnson is ‘magnetic’ in gritty biopic

The wrestler turned Hollywood actor takes on the role of troubled UFC champion Mark Kerr

Dwayne Johnson in The Smashing Machine
Dwayne Johnson as Mark Kerr: ‘an extraordinary performance’
(Image credit: BFA / A24 / Alamy)

When big stars take on roles requiring facial prosthetics, “it’s often a sign they want to be taken more seriously”, said Dulcie Pearce in The Sun. Think Bradley Cooper in “Maestro” and Steve Carell in “Foxcatcher”. Now, for indie director Benny Safdie’s biopic, Dwayne Johnson has spent hours in “the make-up artist’s chair” to make himself look like the real-life mixed martial arts fighter Mark Kerr.

Of course, Johnson (aka The Rock) was himself a wrestling champ before he became one of Hollywood’s most bankable action stars, and he still has the bulked-up physique to prove it, but this role requires him to flex his acting muscles rather more than he has in his career to date.

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The plot is repetitive (he goes to fights and comes home, which is probably true to life, but you do miss the peaks and troughs that usually appear in sports movies), and Blunt is stuck with an annoying role, “somewhere between a mob wife and a leftover homecoming queen”.

But Johnson is “magnetic” as a frightened man whose need to win comes from somewhere deep within. It’s “an extraordinary performance”, said Owen Gleiberman in Variety. Communicating Kerr’s troubles with impressive subtlety, he delivers a faultless portrait of a “man-machine” learning to become human.