A24 and Benny Safdie both have had some impressive runs lately so when word came out they’d be doing a biopic on the life of Mark Kerr an early Pride / UFC fighter, starring The Rock and Emily Blunt, many were intrigued. Upon a less than stellar release and reviews though it seemed to fade quickly and upon my watch I entirely see why.
Set between 1997 and 2000 we watch MMA fighter Mark Kerr, a then undefeated fighter, coming up at a time when Pride and UFC were slowly gaining traction. His rocky relationship with his girlfriend Dawn (Emily Blunt), leading to his first defeat, and therefore downfall alongside his best friend / coach Mark Coleman shows us the ups and downs of Kerrs career.
While it sounds quite generic, thats because honestly it is. His story is never a particularly interesting one and seemingly one that you’d think would be extremely common. He has a drug issue, aggression issues, relationship issues, and things just generally don’t work out. While they never try to shine away from the faults in his story its just never really one I felt was an enjoyable watch.
Dwayne Johnson does give possibly his most diverse role yet. While he physically looks the part easily we haven’t seen him do such a dramatic role like this before. Emily Blunt and Ryan Bader are both great in their roles as Dawn and Coleman but both also come off as somewhat lifeless and undeveloped. At times towards the end it feels like we’ve even more off of this being a story about Kerr to where he is the side character to a story about Coleman.
As expected from Benny though the fights are what shines here. Shot beautifully with jazz music building up as the fight continues on is a true highlight of the film.
Sadly though nothing else really seems to work here. The film is fine but just entirely unremarkable. While being an early star in the sport attempting to make this a major film seems to have spread out his story just too thin showing how generic his out of the octogon story really was.
Score :
2 / 5
