The Smashing Machine

TIFF REVIEW: BY DARREN ZAKUS

September 22, 2025

4 OUT OF 5 STARS

The Smashing Machine sees Dwayne Johnson unlike audiences have ever seen him before, giving a transformative career best performance as Mark Kerr that showcases a range as an actor that will leave audiences speechless, that when combined with an outstanding supporting performance from Emily Blunt and masterful direction from Benny Safdie, delivers one of the most memorable sports biopics of the decade.

For years, viewers have been watching Dwayne Johnson on the big screen in blockbuster films, proving himself a formidable action star and a comedic whiz. He has been making conscious decisions to move outside of his comfort zone to challenge himself as an actor, most notably in Moana singing music written by Lin Manuel-Miranda, but in The Smashing Machine he pushes himself to an all new level of an actor. Teaming up with writer and director Benny Safdie and his Jungle Cruise co-star Emily Blunt, Johnson opens himself on screen with a vulnerability unlike you have ever seen before from him while becoming legendary mixed martial arts fighter Mark Kerr. The result is not only two sensational performances from Johnson and Blunt, both delivering some of the best work of their respective careers, but a truly terrific character driven sports biopic under the expert direction of Benny Safdie that fittingly is a smashing success from start to finish.

Audiences are about to see Johnson like they have never seen him before. For over two decades, Johnson has made himself a household name with larger Hollywood blockbusters from his debut role in The Mummy franchise, to streaming hits like Red Notice and the highly successful reboot of the Jumanji franchise alongside Kevin Hart, Karen Gillam and Jack Black, but for his latest role he graduates from the lovable blockbuster star to a serious dramatic actor. While the notion of Johnson transforming into a Mark Kerr is not an enormous stretch to imagine given his previous career as a wrestler, it is transformative in another way. Under the great prosthetic work that visually lets Johnson embody Mark, Johnson finds a quiet, soft spoken element to this hulking man with impressive voice modulation to morph his voice into Mark’s. As Mark struggles with his drug addictions, Johnson develops a vulnerable darkness within Mark that is raw, heartbreaking and frightening, tapping into a dramatic ability that we have never seen before from Johnson. Opposite Blunt, there is an unwavering trust and love between them as actors that allows Johnson to get lost in Mark’s demons and deliver a magnificent performance that goes deeper than most performances in biopic films are ever able to do. It is not only the type of performance that an entire actor’s career is remembered for, but one that any actor would die to give, making it evidently clear that Johnson gives the performance of a lifetime as Mark Kerr in The Smashing Machine. There is a strong possibility that come next year, Johnson will be known as Academy Award nominated actor Dwayne Johnson or even Academy Award winning actor Dwayne Johnson.

Equally as impressive as Johnson is Blunt as Mark’s then wife Dawn Staples, and she is just as likely as Johnson to earn an Academy Award nomination for her work in the film. Blunt finds an unwavering compassion as Dawn sticks by Mark throughout his struggles, pushing off her own personal struggles and demons to support his career. It creates a loving yet volatile relationship between Mark and Dawn, with Johnson and Blunt each pushing the other to their breaking point in their performances, allowing them to find a pain and honesty in their performances that builds to the film’s final act. And when it does reach its breaking point, Blunt delivers a show-stopping performance that is shocking, devastating and a release of all of her talents as an actress, which from that single scene alone (and you will know the scene once you see the movie), there is no doubt she will garner major awards conversation for her work.

The rest of the cast is largely comprised of real life MMA fighters and wrestlers to play many of the other wrestlers featured in Mark’s story, and they all suit their roles well and give an authentic feel to this film as it does not feel like a Hollywood production, with Ryan Bader being the standout of the supporting cast as Mark’s friend and training pattern Mark Coleman. This lived in feel to the film is largely attributed to Benny Safdie’s direction of the film, which extends beyond the casting choices he made for the film. Shot on 16mm, Benny Safdie stylizes the film’s visual look with a healthy amount of grain to emulate the feel of a home video footage, giving the footage an unpolished and authentic quality that you would expect from a documentary. Combined with the fully constructed house used as the set for Mark and Dawn’s home, which was designed to give Benny Safdie and his team many locations to hide their cameras out of view of Johnson and Blunt, this allows Johnson and Blunt’s performances to play out naturally without a camera in their face. Instead, Benny Safdie and his team strategically place the camera just out of sight, giving the room for the cast to be as authentic with their performances as possible.

This careful direction to give the film an unpolished, almost documentarian style of storytelling extends to Benny Safdie’s writing. Focusing on a specific time period of three years in Mark’s life while fighting in Japan, Benny Safdie intentionally avoids the hallmarks of the standard Hollywood sports biopic. Purposefully not writing a film that plays out as a highlights reel of Mark’s life, Benny Safdie instead focuses on more intimate moments between Mark and Dawn, Mark’s struggle with his addiction, his training and his fights. It’s all written in a non-grandiose way, instead allowing Mark and Dawn as individuals to blossom on screen, both the good and the ugly of their relationship, which has a more profound viewing effect on the audience as the story being depicted on screen feels more raw and realistic rather than dramatized. This continues into Benny Safdie’s conclusion of the film where he decides not to end the film on one of Mark’s most monumental wins that immortalized him as a fighter, but instead ending on an emotionally resonant note for Mark as an individual that is far more meaningful from a character arc perspective.

For his first film separate from his brother and regular filmmaking collaborator, Benny Safdie knocks it out of the park with The Smashing Machine, delivering an expertly directed and crafted film that is emotionally raw, powerful and a terrific sports biopic. For months, word has been circling about how powerful of a performance Dwayne Johnson delivered as Mark Kerr, and the final results not only live up to the hype, but ushers in a new era in Dwayne Johnson’s career that promises a bright future as he enters his arthouse film era. Under the careful direction and writing of Benny Safdie that intentionally avoids the stereotypical filmmaking techniques of the Hollywood sports biopic, The Smashing Machine unleashes a naturalistic authenticity that allows Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt to give some of the best performances of their career, resulting in a deeply moving cinematic experience that will knock out any opponent.