The Smashing Machine - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

The Smashing Machine is an interesting beast. Benny Safdie adapts John Hyams' 2002 documentary of the same name into a biopic of mixed martial artist Mark Kerr, starring Rock "The Dwayne" Johnson in what I think is his first serious and dramatic role. If not, it is at least a dramatic (no pun intended) change of pace from his recent cinematic output. What's more is that he's quite good, and the film itself is very winning and engaging overall.

If The Rock is looking for a career beyond being "Franchise Viagra", The Smashing Machine is perhaps the best venue for his first big steps in that direction, all due to the environment that the story is set in. If Rock were to try his hand in a role like Howard Ratner (played by Adam Sandler in the Safdie Bros.' 2019 film Uncut Gems), a jeweler in NYC, his physique would stand out and be a distraction. By placing The Rock in a world where he will be surrounded by also very large, muscular folks, it essentially erases his muscles, or rather, it normalizes them (nothing could erase those Bad Larrys). This allows his performance to really stand out.

Personally, I think he should have gotten a nomination from the Academy. Not because it was an especially great performance. Certainly not because I think it had a shot of winning. But for a guy commonly known as "The Rock," who makes his public persona as much about the business as the craft (he is, after all, the person who introduced me to the concept of "verticals," which I still only vaguely understand), I wonder if he'll ever take a risk like this again without that recognition to fuel him. As someone who loves it when actors avoid being pigeonholed, and even more so when they can surprise me, I think the landscape of film would be much more interesting if everyone got to try new things.

Of course, Rock aside, the film is very well made. The look (shot on 16mm by cinematographer Maceo Bishop), the jazzy score (Nala Sinephro), the dramatic arc of Mark Kerr's career and personal struggles, and many of the performances surrounding Kerr (notably Emily Blunt as Kerr's volatile girlfriend Dawn, Ryan Bader as one of Kerr's best friends and fellow fighter Mark Coleman, and MMA veteran / all-around lunatic Bas Rutten as himself, acting as a trainer for Kerr) all contribute to a wonderfully unique sports drama. As Emily Blunt points out in one of the bonus features, while many sports stories are about chasing victory, The Smashing Machine is more focused on picking up the pieces of the life around that chase.

Vital Disc Stats - The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

Thanks to A24 Shop, The Smashing Machine takes 4K UHD to the mats. This is the first A24 physical release I've encountered, and the presentation is very unique, as you might expect from A24. A cardstock sleeve, which for some reason opens on the left, whereas most similar packaging opens on the right, reveals another cardstock folding sleeve inside with the disc (in a plastic tray) and some photo cards. The photo cards are a mix of behind-the-scenes photos and photographs taken within the movie, as Mark Kerr (and others) are frequently being photographed by fans and reporters. It's a clever addition to the package, beyond just including reproductions of stills which is a lot more common. The packaging itself is quite handsome, with a lot of those film stills reproduced in really lovely color and with an overall very colorful, cleanly laid out look to all the titles and text. But seriously, I am always thrown by the inner sleeve sliding out to the left.

I love the look of this film. I love the look of film, period, and cinematographer Maceo Bishop said a really interesting thing that instantly put him on my Filmmakers To Watch list: "Digital is a conversation with perfection, 16mm is a conversation with failure". I find that outlook absolutely fascinating and, without knowing his entire deal, I think I understand where he's coming from. When so much can be recreated "perfectly", there are no happy accidents, but by shooting on film, you have all sorts of things that are manageable rather than omnipotently controllable. The Smashing Machine has light leak, and moments of the stadium lights shining directly into the lens which creates some of, hands down, my favorite images of the entire film. Even in its visually darkest moments, the look of the film feels like a jewel box, with deep colors and a real tactile feeling to all the textures of the movie: worn-out gym mats, sweat-soaked clothing, a bowl that has been replaced using Kintsugi, the Japanese repair art where gold is used to mend cracks in pottery; it's all so sensual.

Much of this film is kind of quiet, in general. There are crowd sporting event scenes, there are arguments, but the balance was impeccably maintained. The only issues I had was some minor buzzing as a result of some of the tones of the score. Also, my roommate's cats, who watched the film with me (read: slept nearby) did NOT like some of the sustained notes, but that's a them problem, I will not be docking the film at all for that. The score, though, is tremendous. Nala Sinephro, who composed the film's music with the improvisational nature of MMA in mind, and also appears in the film playing the harp, delivers piece after piece of emotionally resonant and engrossing music. It all seems to be harp and drums, or at least I believe that was what I noticed most, and it's really fantastic. Beyond that, environmental details in the mix were also extremely well utilized. Mark Kerr's story is a very public one, involving a lot of travel, so things like songs on a car radio, passengers on a train, street sounds, other folks sharing the gym; it all adds to the documentary-like immersion of the film.

The bonus features here are solid. My one caveat is that a lot of the most interesting stuff presented in the supplements is repeated in the commentary from Benny Safdie, so whichever one you partake in first will likely take some of the punch out of the other. That's not to say that there aren't plenty of things to chew on, however. The one thing I was fascinated by was the realization that the prosthetics The Rock wore to better resemble Mark Kerr had to withstand a LOT of wear and tear: sweat, impact, etc. Prosthetic designer Kazu Hiro also had to sculpt different appliances depending on how swollen Mark is supposed to be at any given time.

• Audio Commentary with writer/director Benny Safdie
• "What it Means to be a Fighter: Making The Smashing Machine" Featurette (HD 25:09)
• 16mm Camera Test (HD 9:09) 
• Deleted Scenes:
• Bob's Burgers (HD 2:39)
• Buddhist Temple (HD 4:01) 

The Smashing Machine isn't my favorite sports drama, it's not my favorite film from either Safdie brother, and it's not my favorite Rock "The Dwayne" Johnson film, but it is impeccably well made and I genuinely think The Rock should have gotten some better recognition for the effort he put forth here. Beyond just sitting for hours for prosthetics applications, or the changes in his speech and physicality that he is absolutely demonstrating here, he also put himself through a ton of physical abuse, agreeing to not only get into that kind of shape, but to perform as much of the sport fighting as was possible in the sake of realness. I also haven't given enough flowers to Emily Blunt, but she's doing exactly what I think The Rock (and so many others) wants to: stretch. Dawn is a BIG character, and to describe her as "volatile" (which I did above) is a massive understatement. But underneath that, Blunt finds Dawn’s vulnerability, the brokenness in the character (who is based on a real person, remember) that makes not only Dawn, but Mark as well, that much more human. On 4k UHD, the film is a unique offering between a 2160p Dolby Vision presentation of a feature shot on 16mm and a Dolby Atmos mix for a film that is far more talkative and contemplative than the ringside chaos we'd expect. Recommended