‘The Smashing Machine’: the true story behind Benny Safdie’s new movie
Having established themselves as a pair of independent cinema’s leading lights, Benny Safdie and brother Josh decided the time was right to go their separate ways. The former dove right in at the deep end of solo feature-length filmmaking by partnering up with one of the biggest movie stars on the planet.
Dwayne Johnson purchased the film rights to the documentary The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr in 2019. That’s why it’s fitting that Emily Blunt signed on to play the subject’s partner Dawn Staples, considering it was she who first brought ‘The Rock’ and Safdie together.
Blunt worked with the latter on Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, and she already had a pre-existing relationship with Johnson after they teamed up on Disney’s Jungle Cruise. The Rock told Blunt about his desire to play Kerr on-screen, she relayed that information to Safdie, and now A24 is backing The Smashing Machine with production well underway.
It might be a multi-billion dollar operation these days, but MMA was anything but when Kerr first broke through and became one of its earliest superstars. If the movie is following the story told in The Smashing Machine documentary, then it’ll offer a no-holds-barred account of Kerr’s physical and mental struggles.
The doc dives into his background as a successful and medal-laden amateur wrestler before he burst onto the scene and earned his nickname by winning all three fights at a 1997 tournament in São Paulo in brutally decisive fashion, which saw him invited to compete in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Kerr would then head over to the Pride Fighting Championships in Japan due to the larger paydays on offer, where he was swiftly anointed an international star of MMA and arguably the most fearsome heavyweight on the planet. His success came at a price, though, with the fighter succumbing to painkiller addiction and substance abuse, which pushed his relationship with Dawn to the brink.
Unfortunately, his issues get the better of him despite an ultimatum being handed to him if he doesn’t get clean, with Kerr being hospitalised in October 1999 after an overdose. Reaching the bottom of the barrel after being unable to recognise his surroundings or name the current president, he makes a vow to get clean, cancels his upcoming fights, and checks himself into rehab.
Kerr’s story encompasses a rapid rise to fame, the untold riches that come with it, as well as the dangers of addiction and battles with crippling anxieties and mental health issues. It’s unlikely that Safdie’s The Smashing Machine will deviate too far from the events depicted in the documentary, if only because Johnson is a mere three years younger than Kerr.
Still, it promises to be a hard-hitting sports biopic that doesn’t shy away from the dark side of its subject’s time in the spotlight and could be a career-defining performance for ‘The Rock’ as he finally realises his dream of bringing Kerr’s story to the masses.
