The Smashing Machine

Front Row at the Movies by Shirrel Rhoades

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Suppose you wanted to make a biopic about a former wrestler who became a champion mixed martial arts fighter – literally a smashing machine? Who would be the perfect cast?

How about Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson – former WWE champion and bankable A-list movie star?

Director, writer, producer, and editor Benny Safdie scored big when Johnson agreed to portray extreme fighter Mark Kerr in his new film, “The Smashing Machine.” Johnson had sat on the rights to the film, afraid to tackle it.

But Mark Kerr’s story was too tempting.

During his MMA career, Kerr was a two-time UFC Heavyweight Tournament Champion, World Vale Tudo Championship tournament winner, and a PRIDE FC competitor.

Safdie based his film on a 2002 HBO documentary titled “The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr.”

Life and Times includes Kerr’s MMA fighting prowess, his addiction to pain medication, and his problems with his girlfriend (and later wife) Dawn Staples.

In the film, Emily Blunt (“The Devil Wears Prada,” “A Quiet Place” films) plays Dawn.

We’re also introduced to Kerr’s rival (and later mentor) Mark Coleman. He is played by Ryan Bader, a mixed martial artist who is the winner of the 2018 Bellator Heavyweight World Grand Prix.

Dwayne Johnson put on over 30 pounds for his role. And he gained some hair, although Kerr is often pictured with a shaved head.

“I felt like I had to do this. And this was the great challenge of my life, of my career,” says Dwayne Johnson. “This was a very physical transformation. This guy’s body is crazy. In his prime, he was 270-275 pounds, just a unicorn of a [body] with fast-twitch fibers. The director said. ‘I don’t know how to actually say this to you, but I think you’re going to have to get bigger.’”

So, The Rock gained “roughly 30 to 32 pounds, which is a lot of weight. But also I had to be able to move with that weight.”

As an actor, Johnson never really did the indie thing. In 2001, he burst onto the scene in a blockbuster, “The Mummy Returns,” and has never looked back. In nearly 25 years of making movies, his films have grossed over $12.5 billion at the global box office.

Johnson admits he was afraid of doing a small film that depended on his acting. And particularly one that required him to shape his muscles into that of an MMA fighter instead of a wrestler. The transformation also included a new voice, new hair and facial prosthetics.

Rotten Tomatoes gives “The Smashing Machine” a 76% rating, saying: “Dwayne Johnson goes the distance with his transformative turn as Mark Kerr in ’The Smashing Machine,’ a gritty biopic that sidesteps cliché even at the expense of narrative satisfaction while still landing the dramatic body blows that count.”

“This has been the most challenging of my entire career, but also the most freeing of my career and the most gratifying because I knew what the opportunity was and that opportunity was for me to explore and access things that I hadn’t in the past, certainly not on film,” says Johnson. “I didn’t want to wake up tomorrow going, God … I really wish I got out of my comfort zone back then. I wanted to wake up and say, ‘I’m so glad I got out of my comfort zone.’ And I’m so glad I did it.”

Email Shirrel: srhoades@aol.com