Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is an actor who has started his career out as a wrestler, as most people know by now. He had early roles in The Scorpion King, a spinoff of The Mummy Franchise, starring Brendan Fraser back in the late 90s early 2000s.Roles in The Tooth Fairy and The Game Plan didn’t help his career much. He was okay in The Rundown, but his career didn’t start off very well to be clear. As the years have gone by, he has had some good performances in the Fast and Furious Franchise, Moana, a Disney animated feature, and the reboot of the Jumanji franchise and its sequel. As his career, he has developed a comedic nature to his performances. That’s a progression of this man who started out as a wrestler. That’s the moniker he was given. The guy who was a wrestler. Now, with the performance of Mark Kerr in The Smashing Machine, he can finally be labeled as an actor. That’s how great his performance in this film is. I’d even go as far as saying that it’s worthy of a best actor Oscar nomination come next year’s Academy Awards.

Mark Kerr (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) is a mixed martial artist/wrestler. He fights for the Japanese Pride fighting organization. It was the early version of the UFC (The  Ultimate Fighting Championship). In the late 90s, he was an absolute beast of a man. He destroyed his opponents one after the other. When he’s not beating men to a pulp, he lives a quaint life in Arizona with his beautiful girlfriend, at this point in his life, Dawn Staples (Emily Blunt). They seem like a happy couple until something that happens in the ring causes a rift between the pair. As well as Kerr’s addiction to painkillers and other opioid drugs.

Johnson gives the performance of his career. Some of the things he does to turn himself into this softhearted man outside the ring and into the beast in the ring. The first thing he does is change his voice to play this man. It didn’t hear the boisterous voice of “The Rock” the ex-WWE World Champion, or the Final Boss, whom he recently played in some past WWE PLE’S and on their primetime television shows. He made a name for himself with his famous wit and banter. Here he is, quiet and soft-spoken. That’s who Kerr was outside the ring. Also, a legend in the make and hairstyling department,Felix Fox, and his team do a great job of making Johnson look identical to Kerr. It’s uncanny how closely they look like each other. The real Kerr plays himself in one scene. These two things were the main reasons Johnson was so good in this role. A performance worthy of an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor from this humble critics’ opinion.

I would be amiss if I didn’t mention the director, who has split from his tag team partner, brother Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie. He did a great job capturing the look and feel of the time period that this film took place in. The was a hew to the camera work similar to a western or period piece movie. This hew distinguished the film in these specific years that the movie took place. It didn’t feel like a film. In some ways, it felt like it was actually happening. I don’t  know if this was on purpose or not, but I noticed the camera work right off the bat in this picture. Benny Safdie has been doing a bit of acting lately in The Happy Gilmore 2, as Gilmore’s foil, and  Are There God? It’s Me Margaret, as Margaret’s dad, but I hope he continues to direct movies because that is where his bread and butter is. Whether he’s with his brother or not, he makes amazing pictures.

Besides Johnson, in the film, the supporting cast is exceptional. Starting with Blunt. She gives a performance as Kerr’s girlfriend, and she is the main foil of his character if that sounds weird. He is, in fact, an UFC fighter. I know what you’re thinking. How can that be? She causes him issues at home, which inevitably cause him problems in the ring. It’s a typical wife character where she wants attention, and that distracts from the main character who is a great athlete in this case. She was so annoying in this role but in a good way. I absolutely hated her, but that was the point. The narrative was trying to paint her as the villain of the story even though he was a fighter. This was a fascinating way to portray a wife. It worked exceptionally well, though. Also, there were a couple of ex_UFC fighters in supporting roles, Ryan Badder, as Mark Coleman, and Bas Rutten, as himself,and they were pretty good considering they aren’t actors. These were just a few of the supporting cast. There were actually hundreds of actors in this film as sports movies often have.

This may come across the wrong way, but the way the picture portrays Kerr and his story is a bit one-sided. It’s obviously a biopic that wants Kerr to look good in the end, and he does from my perspective. There were the typical ups and downs of an athlete’s life ,but the main narrative was written from Kerr’s point of view. The three acts were the normal way to tell a story, but this story was pretty straightforward. If it weren’t for Johnson’s performance and Safdie’s direction, this would have been a pretty mundane sports biopic. As a mixed martial arts movie, it wasn’t bad. I’d still say Warrior is the best film about this topic I’ve seen to date. Even though it’s a fictional story. This one does capture the brutality of the sport that has had people talk about wanting to cancel it because of that. The popularity of the sport has made that impossible by now, though.

The Smashing Machine is the first genuine Oscar worthy acting performance I’ve seen this year. Maybe a few others might be considered for awards buzz, but none of them thus far have given the performance that Johnson has given this year. He is absolutely incredible in this role. He became this beast of a man in the ring and the softhearted side of him out of the ring. The voice and prosthetics are both amazing.The supporting cast are also very good with Blunt doing terrific work once again here opposite Johnson.They were pretty fun to watch in Jungle Cruise, based on the Disney ride.The direction and soundtrack are also very good. Safdie made this look like a period piece movie. The camera work is pretty good. The hew he gave the film was interesting to me. As a sports biopic, this was a mundane movie, but all of these things, especially Johnson’s performance, elevated it into something pretty special. I’m rooting for this picture across the board for awards this coming awards season. That’s how much I loved it.

4 stars

Dan Skip Allen