As a film lover, there are three letters that strike fear in my heart.  U.  F.  C.

Seriously, directors — especially male directors — love the UFC and Mixed Martial Arts in general.  If I had to guess, I would say that in another few years, there will be no more boxing movies.  Sorry, Balboa.  Sorry, Creed.  You’re going to be replaced by movies that are exclusively about men kicking each other in a cage and then pounding on each other once they’re down.  I’m not even saying that’s a bad thing.  Obviously, the sport has a lot of fans.  In the future, when Conor McGregor is doing double duty as both the President of Ireland and the Pope, a lot it will be due to the popularity of MMA.  I have to say, though, that I almost always seem to find films about MMA and cage matches to be a little bit boring, unless they star Jean-Claude Van Damme or, in some cases, Lou Ferrigno.  I prefer boxing movies.  I guess I like my fights without the little kicks.

The Smashing Machine is a biopic of Mark Kerr (played by Dwayne Johnson), an MMA fighter who, the film tells us, was one of the early pioneers of the sport.  When he’s first seen in the film, he’s being interviewed about his success in the UFC.  We see a few clips of him fighting and watching his fists fly, we understand why he’s known as The Smashing Machine.  He’s known for his ability to end fights quickly.  He assures the interviewer that he doesn’t hate any of the men that he fights.  (“Is he okay?” Mark asks about an opponent after one particularly brutal beat down.)  Mark leaves the United States for Pride, which is Japan’s version of UFC.  Not long after arriving in Japan, he discovers that Pride has changed its ruled to disallow almost all of Mark’s techniques because Mark was ending the fights too quickly.

One thing that we notice about Mark is that he’s always smiling and that he seems to have a rather low-key personality for someone who makes his living as a fighter.  It’s easy to see that he’s holding back a lot of his emotions and that he gets those emotions out in the ring.  When he’s not fighting, he’s living in a nice home with his girlfriend, Dawn (Emily Blunt).  He’s a bit of a control freak, worrying about the cat getting on his couch, telling Dawn exactly how to make his protein shakes, and obsessing over the way a cactus is growing outside.  Mark may be a fighter but he also constantly worries about his “tummy,” which is apparently overly sensitive.  Mark is also a drug addict, popping painkillers like candy and shooting up in his bathroom.  When Mark and Dawn argue, his temper can flare and he can go from being soft-spoken Mark to the someone who can tear a door off of its hinges.  After Mark loses his first fight, he sinks deeper into depression and then tries to get clean.  Complicating things is that Dawn is still using and Mark is preparing for his next fight in Japan.

For all the anticipation and the hype that surrounded its release, The Smashing Machine is an uneven film.  It’s not necessarily a bad film but it is a film that leaves the viewer feeling somewhat detached from the action, on the outside looking in.  Dwayne Johnson gives a good performance as Mark and Emily Blunt gives a good performance as Dawn but they’re never quite believable as a couple.  (In fact, I would argue that Johnson’s best dramatic performance remains his nearly silent but physically powerful turn in the unfairly overlooked Faster.)  Because the film is based on a true story and, I imagine, also because the film was directed by Benny Safdie, The Smashing Machine avoids a lot of the traditional cliches of the sports film.  It’s very much an A24 film, wearing it’s indie aesthetic like a chip on its shoulder.  I have to admit though that, while watching the film, I missed a lot of those cliches.  There are some good scenes scattered throughout The Smashing Machine but there’s also not much narrative momentum.

That said, I do have to say that the film’s ending, which feature the real Mark Kerr shopping for groceries, did bring a smile to my face.  He’s someone who has been through a lot so seeing him smiling and debating which cut of beef to purchase was definitely something of a relief.