‘The Smashing Machine’ shows a different facet (and face) of the Rock

“The Smashing Machine” is a strange one: a bio-drama about the emotional sensitivities of a professional fighter. Starring Dwayne Johnson, no less, and brought to us by writer-director Benny Safdie, half of the Safdie brothers team that has made such itchy, electrifying films as “Good Time” (2017) and “Uncut Gems” (2019).

Those movies offered newly raw sides of their stars, Robert Pattinson and Adam Sandler respectively, and, in a less volatile way, “The Smashing Machine” shows a different facet of the Rock. I’m not sure anyone asked for this movie, but I’m not unhappy it’s here.

Johnson plays Mark Kerr, the competitive wrestler who became one of the breakout stars of mixed martial arts as that sport evolved in the late 1990s. Yet “The Smashing Machine” avoids fight-movie clichés at every turn, starting with the way it presents Kerr as a gentle behemoth when he’s not in the ring. When he is in the ring, he’s the bone-crushing brute of the title. (Kerr has already been the subject of a 2002 HBO documentary.)

Instead of structuring the narrative along classic lines of rise-rise-setback-triumph, Safdie skips the rise and plunges us into the winning streak of Kerr’s early MMA bouts, culminating in his first ever loss, to Ukrainian fighter Igor Vovchanchyn (Oleksandr Usyk), in 1999. It’s that upset that undoes him, leading to depression, opioid addiction and rehab, all of which “The Smashing Machine” gets out of the way fairly quickly.

What’s left — what makes up the bulk of the movie — is how Kerr fares in the aftermath, as he commits himself to sobriety and tries to keep the violence out of his home and in the ring. His primary antagonist in all this, and a figure the movie can’t make up its mind about, is Kerr’s girlfriend and eventual wife, Dawn Staples, played by Emily Blunt with more depth, detail and compassion than the script itself provides.

The couple’s fights take up the movie’s back half to the point of repetitiveness, but they stand the dynamic of, say, “Raging Bull” on its head by making Dawn the needy pot-stirrer provoking Kerr to anger (and the occasional fist through the door) and the fighter a good-hearted lummox desperately trying to be emotionally available. There’s no assigning of blame in this; Safdie simply presents it as a relationship gone toxic, contrasted by Kerr’s supportive friendship with fellow wrestler/MMA fighter Mark Coleman, who is played with winning amateurishness by real-life fighter Ryan Bader. “The Smashing Machine” is a movie where the muscle-bound headbangers are more in touch with their feelings than anyone else; that’s the quiet irony of the title.

Fans of the sport will recognize Bader, Usyk, Marcus Aurélio, Roberto “Cyborg” Abreu, Satoshi Ishii and Dutch kickboxer Bas Rutten as Mark’s coach, all of whom appear in the film. But most audiences will be transfixed by the man playing Kerr, since Johnson has been rendered so unrecognizable through hair (he’s been given some), makeup and facial prostheses that it’s like watching an entirely different actor. Kerr’s vulnerable side is what Safdie is interested in exploring, and Johnson responds with a thoughtful, nuanced and often moving performance — maybe not quite the stuff of Oscars but a striking achievement, nonetheless.

So intent is the director on avoiding the pitfalls of the genre, though, that he ultimately manages to tap himself out. The bouts are primarily shot by Maceo Bishop from outside the ring, keeping the viewer at a dispassionate distance; Nala Sinephro’s eerie, jazz-inflected score serves the same beautifully alienating purpose that Oneohtrix Point Never’s synth music did for earlier Safdie brothers movies. More problematically, the gritty aesthetic of 1970s cinema — light on plot, heavy on atmosphere and character — has always been a key touchstone for these filmmakers, but in “The Smashing Machine” it leads to dramatic shapelessness and a growing sense of drift.

Still, the movie stands as evidence that Benny Safdie is not just half of a stellar brother act (and a fine actor, as attested to by his Edward Teller in “Oppenheimer”) but an intriguing directing talent in his own right. That’s good news given that the Safdies have amicably split as a team for the foreseeable future. December will bring Josh Safdie’s solo directorial debut, “Marty Supreme,” which stars Timothée Chalamet as a visionary 1950s table tennis champion and which also looks certifiably nuts.

We’re lucky these guys are making movies, and we’re lucky there are two of them.

R. At area theaters. Contains adult language and some drug abuse. 123 minutes.

Ty Burr is the author of the movie recommendation newsletter Ty Burr’s Watch List at tyburrswatchlist.com.