Bennie Safdie’s new movie The Smashing Machine — the rise and fall story of Mark Kerr, a decorated, troubled MMA fighter from the sports’ earliest days — played at the Venice Film Festival this week.
That occasion got the film’s star, WWE superstar-turned-box office king Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, trending for the body transformation he’s gone through since playing Kerr in last year’s shoot.
That transformation included wearing facial prosthetics in the film. Johnson also says that playing the role for Safdie, one-half of the brother duo responsible for gritty, realistic crime thrillers like Good Time and Uncut Gems, got him to face fears and go places as an actor that he never had before.
All of that may have been going through Rocky’s mind as the crowd in Venice gave The Smashing Machine a 15-minute standing ovation. Johnson was caught on film wiping away and smiling through tears beside co-star Emily Blunt during the applause.
Dwayne Johnson weeps during the 15-minute #Venezia2025 standing ovation for ‘The Smashing Machine.’ This was the most emotion we’ve since on the Lido since Brendan Fraser launched his Oscar campaign here four years ago for ‘The Whale.’
Variety’s Co-Editor-in-Chief doesn’t just idly bring up Brendan Fraser’s successful Best Actor Oscar campaign for The Whale. The was awards buzz for Johnson before anyone had seen The Smashing Machine. It’s going to get louder after moments like the one in Venice, and reviews like these:
Ryan Lattanzio for IndieWire: “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.”
ADVERTISEMENTVariety’s Owen Gleiberman: “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.”
Geoffrey Macnab of The Independent (in a review subtitled, “Proof that Dwayne Johnson is a real actor, and potentially a future Oscar winner”): “…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.”
GQ (UK)’s Jack King: “It’s difficult to recall another time when the actor has been so outwardly vulnerable on screen. You often forget it’s Johnson at all, in part due to the prosthetics behind which he is subtly masked, but also because he is so emotionally transformed.”
Phillip De Semiyen for Time Out: “The Smashing Machine is an unexpectedly gentle, soulful character study that has Johnson undercutting his crowd-pleasing ‘The Rock’ persona with vulnerability and boyish uncertainty.
Not every one is positive; the film is currently at 86% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and 75/100 on Metacritic. But even the negative reviews seem to have good things to say about the man we sometimes know as The Final Boss.
Come next spring, DJ may need space to display a few trophies alongside his wrestling championships…
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