Here are review links for this film submitted by our members:
- Allen Almachar @ The MacGuffin
- Excerpt: This is a movie that depicts a true story but doesn’t give us enough reason as to why it stands apart from any other tale about struggling athletes.
- Alex Bentley @ CultureMap Dallas
- Excerpt: The Smashing Machine is being hyped as an Oscar vehicle for Johnson, but neither he nor the way Safdie tells the story makes the case that his performance should be considered one of the best of the year.
- Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Safdie, who directs with the same caffeinated, if slightly less hyper-active style as “Uncut Gems,” gives us a three perspectives on Kerr…You will forget you are watching Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson, so completely does he settle into Kerr’s skin.
- Jason Flatt @ But Why Tho?
- Kristian Lin @ Fort Worth Weekly
- Excerpt: This MMA biopic is just an audition tape, but it’s a good one.
- Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: To say Dwayne Johnson is a revelation would be an understatement.
- [New] | Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: I was very impressed by Dwayne Johnson proving just as capable. Man, was he great. Justifiably yet mournfully tempestuous. Infectiously and inspirationally jubilant. He owns every single frame.
- Matt Oakes @ Silver Screen Riot
- Excerpt: ‘The Smashing Machine’ is a shockingly flat UFC fighter biopic from writer-director Benny Sadie that seems incapable of understanding what makes a movie interesting. Dwayne Johnson is Rock solid in the lead role but the character remains a bit of a mystifying lunk, always at arm’s reach and never very appealing.
- Jacob Oller @ The A.V. Club
- Excerpt: If a biopic simply mimics its non-fiction inspiration beat for beat, mirroring its structure, aesthetic, dialogue, and even individual frames, then the exercise merely trudges forward with the narcotized lifelessness of Disney’s “live-action” remakes. This is the fate of The Smashing Machine, which deadens its retold story of early mixed martial arts fighter Mark Kerr with stilted reenactments and endless injections of numbing drama.
- Diego Salgado @ Sofilm [Spanish]
- Jeff Schaefer @ The Marquee Topic
- Excerpt: Benny Safdie directs Dwayne Johnson in The Smashing Machine for A24. The film chronicles MMA fighter Mark Kerr in a turbulent era of his career at the turn of the century.
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