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The Smashing Machine<\/em> is a frustrating movie. Occasionally kind of brilliant and an undeniable actor\u2019s showcase, but ultimately very frustrating.<\/p>\n I want to focus on the good first, and the acting in this movie is frequently quite good. If you go to the cinema to see stars fully inhabit other people, this is the flick for you.<\/p>\n Dwayne Johnson, who stars as MMA fighter Mark Kerr making the rounds on the Pride fighting circuit in the late 1990s, has clearly gotten tired of being dismissed as a generic action lunkhead. His bulk is a misdirection here, one that distracts from the quiet, calm, almost wheedling that emanates from his bourbon-barrel-sized chest. He\u2019s dolled up in prosthetics that render him almost unrecognizable, at least until he shaves his head and turns just the right way and the light hits him just right and you\u2019re like \u201cOh yeah, that\u2019s the Rock.\u201d Not Dwayne Johnson: the Rock, the WWE superstar, a man the size of a tank with traps that could tear down a temple. Ultimately, you can\u2019t fake muscles, and there are only a handful of people in the world who could play this role.<\/p>\n Johnson plays Kerr with a childlike sensibility here: Benny Safdie\u2019s script has him constantly complaining about his girlfriend, Dawn (Emily Blunt), not being \u201cnice\u201d to him, how she\u2019s \u201crude.\u201d There\u2019s a wheedling tone to his voice, a whininess that undercuts his enormous girth, and that incongruity plays throughout the film; in an opening voiceover, as we see Kerr dismantle a series of opponents with headbutts and eye gouges, we hear that same tone of juvenile wonder at his own brutality.<\/p>\n Blunt\u2019s work as Dawn Staples is trickier: She\u2019s a fundamentally unlikable character in that she\u2019s not quite a nag or a harpy, but she is clearly unintentionally destructive to Kerr\u2019s career and not particularly thoughtful about his personal needs. With a wardrobe pulled from the closet of Sopranos<\/em> moll Adriana La Cerva, Blunt walks a fine line between supportive, oblivious, annoying, and self-destructive.<\/p>\n Give the gift of Sonny: Pop this review into a friend\u2019s inbox or post it to social media:<\/p>\n