On the basis of the high -adrenaline films that Benny Safdie has done with his brother Josh, you can expect his new film about the early days of mixed martial arts, “The Smashing Machine”, to be an exercise in High -octane Brutality, especially as it travels back to the martial arts, which begins its leader who begins that begins that begins that begins that begins that begins that begins that begins that begins who begins who begins who begins acting actors
(He does not use that nickname in the credits here, but it is difficult not to refer to it in view of the subject of the film.)
But one of the surprising things about “The Smashing Machine”, which premieres on Monday at the Venice Film Festival, is that in many ways it is one of the mildest movies you see about fighting. This is Benny Safdie’s debut as a solo director, and he leans towards the opposite choice: there is a muscular, music-driven training assembly when our hero is getting ready for his big attack, but the song that drives it is not something like “Eye of the Tiger”; Instead, it is Elvis Presley’s late reproduction of the elegant standard “My Way”.
In a way, the A24 film takes its clue from its topic, Mark Kerr, which seems to be both a violent MMA fighter and a gentle, soft-talk man. (He is now retired and appears in the film.) Kerr can pumble his opponents, but at the doctor’s office the next day he will calmly explain to an older woman why the fighters are not really crazy and how much respect they have for each other.
And while you might hug to look at the injuries caused in these seizures, where the favored way to win seems to be to throw your opponent to the ground, get up on him and either hit or kneel him in the face until the referee stops the fight, there is no in-Ossik struggling a movie where each punch is seen close and amplified. Instead, the matches are pushed outside the ring, and most fights end fairly quickly instead of playing out over the usual Fler-rounded boxing movie bows.
In fact, Safdie can spend more time on a single shot by Kerr who slowly goes back through the intestines of the arena to the dressing room after losing his first fight than he does on the attack itself.
“The Smashing Machine” is a period that takes us back to the time when mixed martial arts had a cult behind and the fighters traveled to tournaments in Japan for relatively little money, rather than getting exhibitions on the fourth of July on the White House’s lawn. The film takes place between 1997 and 2000, when Kerr was a rising star with his close friend, training partner and colleague Mark Coleman.
If it is difficult to imagine a figure that is as iconic as Johnson who plays a little well -known fighter, there is a simple solution: make him anything but unrecognizable. You can say that it is Johnson of The Voice, and the look gets a little closer to the film when Kerr shaves his head, but for most of the film, Johnson sees his own face-and, of course, his tattoos-are buried during makeup and dentures that do not look like dentures, with the permission of Oscar-Winning makeup designer Kazu Hiro.
He plays a guy who tries to make a mark in a field that is still fighting for respect, and one where the goal, he says, is simple: “Will I hurt him more than he hurts?”
For the most part, the answer to that is yes, but Kerr gets hurt badly. During the doctor’s visit, it is clear that he is an ordinary, and how he sees the injection bottles and changes pharmacies and insurance companies for his latest recipe is immediately suspicious, both for the audience and to Kerr’s long -standing girlfriend, Dawn (Emily Blunt). The relationship always seems a little uneasy, with promises of passion that comes in between Kerr who constantly rivets about everything from how Dawn makes her smoothies to how she trims the cactus in the garden.
Of course, he hides an addiction to painkillers, which sends him into the hospital, then to rehabilitation and then to the comeback track. These are all staples of inspirational sports movies, but Safdie is not really one to fall back on staples; There is something bold in the way that “The Smashing Machine” plays its fights against atmospheric ballads rather than sneaky rock songs. (But there is a beautiful Rockin ‘version of the Japanese national anthem at one point.)
In some ways, Safdie’s approach seems relaxed and grounded rather than pumped up, although it is also raw both physically and emotionally. Even when Kerr is on his smooth and friendliest, his external calm is not soothing because Johnson shows enough rage and pain under it.
Still, it is fun that the Safdie movie if violence is calmer than the one about designer jewelry. But maybe it makes it related to Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler”, a character study where the worst brutality took place from the ring. It is not one of the triumphant sports movies that we are all tired of, but it is not wrong to say that there is any triumph here.
