Ben O'Shea: What Is It Really Competing With, The Tooth Fairy?

Everyone loves The Rock, and now he’s teamed up with Ben Safdie for The Smashing Machine. Ben O’Shea popped in to give Russell the lowdown and it did not disappoint. The film sees The Rock step into the role of an MMA fighter, with Emily Blunt delivering a fantastic performance alongside him. What the movie does especially well is capture the emotional struggles behind the sport, though it stops short of exploring its moral complexities of the sport. Tune in to hear the full review. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Great per flick with Ben Ashey, Good morning, Ben.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Made. We got to talk about Dwayne the Rock Johnson
and the performance of his career.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Oh really?

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Oh yeah. Well look that's a pretty low bar to clear.
So if you've heard anything about his new movie, This
Smashing Machine, you would have heard, Oh you know, the
Rock is an Oscar contender. This is the greatest performance
he's ever given on the screen. But look, what is
it really competing with the Toothbairy, WrestleMania seventeen, the Jamanji franchise.

(00:35):
So's he's what he's previously lacked in acting ability, the
Rock has more than made up for in likability. He
is one of the most beloved and bankable action stars
in Hollywood at the moment. Everyone loves the Rock, but
I think he probably felt that he had a bit
more to give, and so he's teamed up with the
director Ben Sassey, who he might remember. He's the one

(00:58):
who directed Uncut j who convinced us that Adam Adam
Sandlers also had dramatic acting ability. So Sassi has a
bit of form when it comes to taking actors and
showing us a different side of them. And so in
this film, the Rock is playing an MMA fighter, Mark Kerr.
It's a true story based on this guy who was

(01:19):
one of the earliest competitors in the Ultimate Fighting Championship
the UFC, which of course now is a multi billion
dollar sporting organization, big business and these days, of course,
you know, you're Connor McGregor's and other people like that
make millions of dollars. Back then, Mark Kerr one of
the first ones to do it. He was getting a
couple of grand to fight, getting absolutely beaten to heck

(01:42):
and in the end, you know, his body was broken.
He had a drug addiction. So it's a pretty pretty
sad story, but it's a perfect sort of topic for
a biopic. And so the Rock plays Mark Kerr, who's
a former college wrestler, gets into Ultimate Fighting and then
sort of, you know, struggles with some of the aspects

(02:02):
of this and also has even bigger struggles outside of
the octagon with his girlfriend Dawn, who's played by the
great British actress Emily Blunt, and she is fantastic in this.
Like thankfully their relationship never became violent, but certainly it
was a war of words all the time, and it
sort of went from love to hate, and she was

(02:25):
supportive sometimes sometimes you know, she was probably more interested
in the money that he was earning and the lifestyle,
and he had to overcome that stuff in his domestic
life and then get into the ring and take on
someone who wanted to, you know, beat the absolute but
Jesus out of him. Now, what the film does really
well is, I guess, depict that emotional struggle that Mark

(02:46):
Kerr went through. What I would say is it probably
doesn't really examine the morality of the sport at a
time when it certainly was creating a lot of controversy,
Like the boxing purists really question where the UFC even
had a place in the sporting landscape. The film steers
well clear of that. It's a bit of a branding

(03:08):
exercise for UFC, if I'm being honest.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
So it's a bit like the Formula One movie, is it?

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Oh, it's very similar to that. Like I think anytime,
whether it's a musical, biopic or a film that's attached
to a particular brand, you only really get to make
those movies if you're very careful with what you're doing
with those brands, and this film is a bit careful
with that. But look, it's an interesting portrait of a guy.

(03:36):
Although I will say it is very, very similar to
the documentary The Smashing Machine, the Life and Times of
extreme fighter Mark Kerr. So that's the inspiration behind this film.
If that film came out I think in the early
two thousands, it's basically almost the scene for scene recreation
of that documentary, so dramatized, just dramatized, exactly a dramatical recreation.

(04:00):
And that's not uncommon. There's certainly a lot of movies
where you find that if it's not based on a book,
it's based on a documentary, and they do take some
of those scenes from documentaries and just get actors to
redo them. Is that the greatest artistic achievement in the world.
I would argue probably not, but certainly from the Rocks perspective,

(04:21):
you know, he's really great. Will he get an Oscar nomination?
I think there's a possibility. I think Emily Blunt might
also earn one for this. But look, I think it's
a good film, but it's probably not quite the you know,
five star film that some people are saying that it is.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
How many knockouts in the ring? How many stars out
of five? Are you giving the Smashing Machine Bend, which
is in cinemas today, by the way.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
In cinema today, I'm going to give it three and
a half in a split decision.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Gee, that's not bad. That's pretty.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
It's not bad. There's a lot to like about it,
the well made film, and the rock is is really good.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Okay, and there's a lot of UFC fans, so it's
definitely worth going in on the big screen. Hey Ben,
thanks a lot. We'll send you to the movies again
and you can come back and tell us about another
one next week.