<\/p>\n
First reviews are out for The Smashing Machine, the first solo directorial effort from indie favorite Benny Safdie, which debuted this evening in Venice.<\/p>\n
The film stars Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt. The story follows fighter Mark Kerr (Johnson) from the no-holds-barred era of the UFC at the peak of his career as he questions himself and struggles with life and his relationships. Meanwhile, Mark\u2019s girlfriend Dawn Staples (Blunt) struggles as well to find her place in Mark\u2019s chaotic and contradictory world.<\/p>\n
More from Deadline<\/strong><\/p>\n The early reviews are mixed; however, there appears to be a consensus among the critics about the surprising quality of Johnson\u2019s leading performance.<\/p>\n In his review, Deadline\u2019s Damon Wise wrote: \u201cDwayne Johnson<\/a> owns the whole thing with his truly remarkable work as fighter Mark Kerr, disappearing so fully underneath Kazu Hiru\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n In an article titled \u201cDwayne Johnson is a real actor, and potentially a future Oscar winner\u201d, The Independent also praised the veteran WWE actor\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n However, despite early flourishes, the newspaper states that the film struggles to maintain its momentum, concluding that the narrative \u201cbegins to seem very hollow.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe real way Safdie puts a chokehold on his audience is by examining Mark and Dawn\u2019s physical and emotional weaknesses in such forensic detail,\u201d the newspaper states. \u201cThe 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\u2019ve seen him this exposed, you won\u2019t watch his typical action movie stunts in quite the same way ever again.\u201d<\/p>\n Indiewire states that \u201cJohnson is an ideal match for Safdie and the material, bridging without sensation or cloying affect the disconnect between who Mark is in the octagon (intimidating, undefeated, all primal machismo energy) and who he is outside the cage (wounded, insecure, cauliflower-eared).\u201d<\/p>\n Little White Lies also praised Johnson\u2019s performance alongside Blunt, but zeroed in on the film\u2019s unique approach to sports drama. The outlet said Safdie \u201cshuns the trappings of traditional sporting biopics obsessed with the concept of sacrificing everything in the name of victory.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSafdie works in a different mode to the swollen melodrama of many genre mates \u2013 even the greatest among them \u2013 and a key influence is John Hyams\u2019 raw and revealing 1997 documentary, which also gives this film its name,\u201d the outlet said. \u201cSome moments are recreated, such as Kerr earnestly explaining UFC to a lightly baffled woman in a doctor\u2019s waiting room, but much has been condensed, and this is to the film\u2019s benefit as it avoids becoming a by-the-book account of Kerr\u2019s life so far.\u201d<\/p>\n However, not all the reviews have been positive. In a piece titled \u201cThe Smashing Machine Is Too Soft for Its Own Good,\u201d Vulture magazine states that Johnson is \u201ckind of the only thing in the movie.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough The Smashing Machine also portrays Kerr\u2019s struggles with opioid addiction and his turbulent romance with his girlfriend Dawn Staples (Emily Blunt), whom he\u2019d eventually marry, these elements get pared down along with much of the rest of the drama,\u201d the magazine wrote.<\/p>\n The magazine added that the film \u201cparticularly fails\u201d Blunt\u2019s Dawn, \u201cwhose frustrations get quite a bit of lip service but little depiction,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n Variety described Johnson\u2019s performance as a \u201crevelation\u201d and praised Safdie\u2019s subtle interrogation of Kerr\u2019s fame and persona.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Smashing Machine isn\u2019t a sports movie that wants to jerk a Pavlovian response of triumph out of us,\u201d the outlet wrote. \u201cIt\u2019s after something subtler and more moving. By the end of the film, Mark, who had grown so used to winning, has won in the most transformative way. He has found the man buried inside the machine.\u201d<\/p>\n A24\u00a0will release the film theatrically on October 3.<\/p>\n Venice runs until September 6.<\/p>\n Best of Deadline<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Deadline’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source uk.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" First reviews are out for The Smashing Machine, the first solo directorial effort from indie favorite Benny Safdie, which debuted this evening in Venice. The film stars Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt. The story follows fighter Mark Kerr (Johnson) from the no-holds-barred era of the UFC at the peak of his career as he questions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1991718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[326505,360015,305874,313617,360016,320675,344655,340346],"class_list":["post-1991717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-benny-safdie","tag-dawn-staples","tag-dwayne-johnson","tag-emily-blunt","tag-evening-in-venice","tag-film-stars","tag-mark-kerr","tag-safdie"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/\u2018The-Smashing-Machine-What-The-Critics-Are-Saying-About-Benny.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1991717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1991718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1991717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1991717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1991717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}