FILM

The Smashing Machine ★★★

(M) 123 minutes

When you start out as a big guy, turning yourself into an even bigger guy might not seem like the most taxing kind of transformation. But as the real-life mixed martial arts champion Mark Kerr in The Smashing Machine , Dwayne Johnson is close to unrecognisable, and not just because of his dark, tightly curled wig, or the work put in by his makeup team and his personal trainer.

Johnson’s acting talent has always been visible to anyone willing to see it, but he’s spent the majority of his Hollywood career in bantering action-hero mode, outwardly relaxed and above it all.

The Kerr of the film is a smooth talker with a carefully crafted public persona, but never truly relaxed: just as he dominates in the ring, he takes up all the available s

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