Oscar or Razzie? Dwayne Johnson’s risky role in ‘The Smashing Machine’
Thanks to the respective filmographies of the director and production company, audiences have come to expect a certain level of prestige and quality from Benny Safdie and A24. The same can’t be said of Dwayne Johnson, though, which places The Smashing Machine in an interesting position.
The former professional wrestler might be one of the biggest and highest-paid stars in Hollywood, but he’s hardly shown himself to be a heavyweight dramatic talent. In fact, he’s never given a performance that could even come remotely close to being called a transformative one, and his turn as Mark Kerr in the upcoming biopic could easily go one of two ways.
‘The Rock’ is certainly bulky enough to convince as the hulking MMA legend, and it’s a story he holds close to his heart after he first acquired the rights to the documentary that inspired the movie in 2019. However, Johnson also spent a decade and a half nursing Black Adam to the big screen and many years intimating his desires to play Hercules, and neither of them screamed ‘passion project’ from the rooftops.
Of course, he’s in significantly more capable hands with Safdie, flying solo as a feature director for the first time after splitting from brother Josh. Not only that, but Uncut Gems showed how effortlessly the siblings could take an actor so famous and well-known for doing one thing and then set them on the path towards career-best work.
On the other side of the coin, the evidence was already there that Adam Sandler was a phenomenal actor when he wanted to be, whereas Johnson hasn’t shown any such inclinations. He’s essentially been playing himself for a decade at this point, and while it’s been a hugely successful approach in terms of burnishing his bank balance, can anyone really single out any performance The Rock has ever given and use it as evidence to suggest he’s got what it takes to enter an Academy Awards race?
Strangely, if he does win an Oscar for it, or even makes the shortlist, then Emily Blunt would deserve more credit than most. She was the one who put Johnson and Safdie together in the first place to connect them over The Smashing Machine after working with the former on Jungle Cruise and the latter on Oppenheimer, and she literally proclaimed it was going to happen eventually.
“I said, ‘You’re gonna win Oscar someday’. I know it,” she informed Happy Sad Confused about her confidence in Johnson’s untapped potential as a thespian. It can’t be ruled out with any great degree of certainty, but it’s just as easy to imagine The Rock being nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award if he doesn’t deliver the best work of his career by a considerable distance in The Smashing Machine.
In addition to having his signature tattoos obscured in order to disappear into the part of Kerr, the first image from the film reveals the leading man will be sporting facial prosthetics. So far, so innocuous, but the Razzies has a habit of singling out underwhelming turns from big names with bells and whistles bolted onto their visages for a special level of scorn.
Jared Leto’s work in House of Gucci was shortlisted for ‘Worst Screen Combo’ with “his 17-pound latex face” being named as the other party, while the beloved Tom Hanks won the exact same prize for Elvis and shared it with “his latex-laden face”. Johnson isn’t as good an actor as either of those two Oscar winners, and without any inkling of whether or not his dramatic muscles have the potential to be as formidable as his physical ones, The Smashing Machine sinking or swimming rests entirely on his broad shoulders.
If he pulls it off, then a brand new era could be ushered in that finds Johnson evolving from mundane action hero into a respected and proven dramatist. On the other hand, if it backfires, then the blame is going to fall entirely on him and his inability to emote, especially when the discerning moviegoer knows an actor trying too hard when they see it. At this stage, it could go either way, but one thing that can’t be denied is that it’s going to be fascinating to find out.
