With a title like The Smashing Machine , one might expect writer-director Benny Safdie ’s first solo-directed feature to be a brutal, grinding sit. The film is based on the 2002 documentary of the same name about the life of Mark Kerr, one of the first American stars of mixed martial arts, a grueling sport. But rather than an intense portrait of MMA’s grunt and strain, The Smashing Machine is mellow, ruminative; it floats more than it stings.

Which is a welcome change of pace from how movies about professional fighters typically carry themselves. There is plenty of blood and grit in the film, but Safdie captures it all with a disarmingly light touch, sympathetically framing these beefed-up brawlers as working men just trying to make something of themselves. It’s a surprisingly amiab

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