Reviews
The Smashing Machine
The Smashing Machine arrives with a wave of awards-season buzz and higher expectations than nearly any recent sports biopic. Yet, despite its ambition and the anticipation surrounding it, the film struggles to fully meet the towering hype it has generated.
The film follows Mark Kerr, a former wrestler turned early pioneer of mixed martial arts, whose rise helped propel the sport into the mainstream. Rather than attempting to cover his entire career, the film narrows its focus to a turbulent three-year stretch from 1997 to 2000. During this period, Kerr faced not only grueling battles in the ring but also personal struggles: an escalating opioid addiction, a strained relationship with his partner Dawn (Emily Blunt), and the chaos of fame. All of this builds toward the climactic Pride tournament in Japan, a landmark event that gathers the world’s top fighters onto one stage.
The film is written and directed by Benny Safdie, marking his first project since the widely publicized split from his brother and longtime collaborator, Josh. While a sports biopic might seem like an unexpected detour from his previous work, Safdie brings a fresh, offbeat perspective to a genre that too often succumbs to cliché.
The Smashing Machine rises or falls on the shoulders of its star, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, in his portrayal of Mark Kerr. Against my personal expectations, Johnson delivers a performance few would have predicted, disappearing into the role with a depth and vulnerability unlike anything in his previous work. His physical transformation makes him completely unrecognisable for all the right reasons, adding another level of awe to the performance. It’s a career-best turn that more than justifies the acclaim he has already received and the recognition still to come. Hopefully, this is a sign of what’s to come for Johnson and not just a one off.
Emily Blunt co-stars as Kerr’s partner Dawn, delivering a solid performance that anchors many of the film’s emotional beats. I was also surprised to see how prominent Mark Coleman (Ryan Bader) became in the story, and despite his limited acting experience, he holds his own convincingly.
Like most A24 projects, The Smashing Machine is a visual joy to behold. I lost count of how many times I found myself gazing in awe at the screen. Safdie deserves a great deal of credit for authentically capturing the look and feel of America and Japan in the late ’90s, creating an atmosphere that feels immersive and believable.
A central draw of any sports biopic is the action in the ring, and The Smashing Machine both succeeds and falters in this regard. The fights, of which there are plenty, are choreographed spectacularly and feel thoroughly believable, giving a real sense of the pain the fighters experience. However, they are fleeting. Multiple rounds and the big fights at the Pride tournament are over almost as soon as they begin, a real letdown for me.
The film’s treatment of Kerr’s opioid addiction suffers similar pacing issues. What could have been a crucial, emotionally resonant point of his story is quickly glossed over. One moment we are with Kerr in the hospital, and within minutes he has left rehab a changed man. Had the audience been allowed to linger in the grief and pain that addiction brings, the overall feeling of the movie would have been far stronger.
Instead, the film spends excessive time on Kerr’s relationship with Dawn. While undoubtedly a key component of his journey, the tone shifts from a sports biopic to more of a relationship drama, something that I think will turn off viewers expecting a deeper dive into the fighting and Kerr’s personal struggles.
Overall, The Smashing Machine is a compelling sports biopic, albeit one marked by multiple flaws, and ultimately a minor disappointment given the pre-release awards hype surrounding it.
The Smashing Machine
Reviews
Play Dirty
Play Dirty is Prime Video’s latest attempt to ride the seemingly endless heist-movie wave. This time, Mark Wahlberg and Lakeith Stanfield team up to bring Richard Stark’s legendary thief Parker back to the screen. With Shane Black in the director’s chair, I had high hopes that a straight-to-streaming action-comedy might finally deliver. Unfortunately, those expectations were crushed within the first ten minutes and the film never really recovered.
Neither the action nor the comedy ever really land. The set pieces suffer from the kind of laughably bad CGI that has, unfortunately, become a hallmark of Prime original movies. I admit it, I did manage a couple of chuckles here and there, but only because I was laughing at the film, not with it.
Wahlberg and Stanfield’s performances are equally forgettable. I can’t quite decide whether to blame the weak material or their paycheck-collecting delivery, but either way, nothing here sticks. Their work is bland, unmemorable, and destined to be forgotten as soon as the credits roll.
There’s just enough happening in the central heist to keep it moderately engaging, so audiences might not be reaching for their phones too often. Still, the two-hour runtime feels bloated, stretching thin what little entertainment value it has.
In the end, Play Dirty isn’t one I’d recommend. If you’re craving a heist fix this weekend, there are far better and far more memorable options out there.
2/5 stars < Insert the star rating as per other reviews
Steve
Steve follows a single day at a struggling 1990s reform school, where headteacher Steve (Cillian Murphy) battles the looming closure and his own fragile mental state while a volatile student, Shy (Jay Lycurgo), wrestles with his past and uncertain future.
Given the character-driven focus of the movie, Steve ultimately succeeds or fails with the performances of its main cast. Fortunately, this is where it shines brightest. Both Cillian Murphy and Jay Lycurgo deliver standout work, capturing the drastic emotional swings that play out across one chaotic day. Their performances ground the story and bring an authenticity that keeps the audience invested.
The film does an excellent job of conveying the various emotional states its characters cycle through, and it would take the coldest of hearts not to be moved by their struggles. The steady deterioration of their mental health is emphasized throughout, creating a raw and deeply human portrait that many viewers will find relatable.
Outside of Murphy and Lycurgo’s roles, however, the supporting characters feel underdeveloped and underutilized. They function more as background pieces than fully realized individuals, which detracts somewhat from the overall quality and impact of the film.
Still, Steve remains a powerful and emotionally poignant drama, one that stands out among recent streaming releases. Bound to move many viewers to tears, it’s well worth checking out on Netflix this weekend.
Reviews
The Lost Bus
The Lost Bus recounts the true story of the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California, following a school bus driver and a teacher as they lead 22 children through gridlocked roads, suffocating smoke, and advancing flames. Based on Lizzie Johnson’s nonfiction book Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire, the film tracks their desperate attempt to navigate a collapsing community, capturing both the chaos outside the bus and the mounting fear within.
Director Paul Greengrass deserves credit for vividly portraying the chaos and trauma of a disaster on an almost unimaginable scale. The emotional weight on the audience is immense, and it’s hard to fathom the devastation experienced by those who actually lived through these events. Having tackled similarly harrowing stories in United 93 and Captain Phillips, Greengrass again demonstrates the sensitivity required to depict such a catastrophic disaster.
Visually, the film can be difficult to follow at times. The shaky-cam approach, intended to convey the fire’s chaos, occasionally makes it hard to fully grasp what’s happening, while some of the CGI struggles to convincingly depict the fire’s impact on towns and neighborhoods.
The performances across the board deserve immense credit, particularly the child actors, whose fear and panic are convincingly conveyed throughout the entire harrowing bus ride. Matthew McConaughey as Kevin McKay and America Ferrera as teacher Mary Ludwig also deliver strong performances, adding both realism and emotional depth to the film.
There’s also the seemingly unnecessary subplot of McKay’s family drama, which could have been omitted without affecting the main storyline, helping to trim some of the excess from an otherwise slightly bloated runtime.
It’s a shame that a movie of this magnitude was released straight to Apple TV. The Lost Bus deserved a theatrical release, as a film of this scale truly benefits from the biggest screen possible. Recent successes like F1 and the short theatrical run of K-Pop: Demon Hunters show there was no reason this film couldn’t have received the same treatment.
