THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.

I’ve always been a fan of athletes finding a second life in acting, whether they gun for the more dramatic roles like Dave Bautista or they go full comedy like John Cena and Marshawn Lynch. I’ve always enjoyed The Rock’s movies, but his résumé was always missing a dramatic turn that The Smashing Machine has now impressively satisfied.

I totally get that Johnson playing a UFC fighter isn’t exactly a stretch mentally, but in a role where he truly wasn’t able to revert back to “acting like The Rock”, he crushed. His performance was top-notch, combining the massiveness and surprising tenderness of Mark Kerr pretty effortlessly, and there were a few times, even, where I forgot this was the same guy I saw in Red One last year.

Johnson’s great performance wasn’t alone, either, as I really enjoyed both Emily Blunt (though her character was 100% insufferable) and Ryan Bader, who I haven’t seen much of but really loved here. Mark Coleman’s subplot in particular was fun to follow, and it was a nice switch-up that the person who kept succeeding wasn’t the main character. Coleman also had to put up with a lot of drama from Kerr and Dawn, so the victories were well-deserved.

I enjoyed Benny Safdie’s visual language in this film as well, in all its grainy glory. It was a very pretty film as well as a very emotional one, and the film’s 3.3 average rating on Letterboxd seems horribly misguided, having now seen it. I was also hyper-analyzing Nala Sinephro’s first film score, which bounced back and forth between conventional and creative. Her rendition of “The Star-Spangler Banner” and its accompanying scene was surely the best moment of her maiden voyage.

The Smashing Machine played it mostly safe, as far as biopics and sports movies go, but when all of the pieces work at the top of their game—namely a career-altering turn from The Rock that deserves an Oscar nomination—it’s hard not to really love. I’m recorded on this website as being a big fan of comedic actors turning dramatic, and I’d like to see more of The Serious Rock (“The Boulder”?) very soon!