There are a couple of spectacular fights in Benny Safide’s The Smashing Machine . The new film, about the life and career of Mark Kerr during the early days of the UFC and mixed martial arts going mainstream, is marketed for its hard-hitting sports action, as well as Dwayne Johnson ’s physical and spiritual transformation. And to be sure, the real-life wrestler with the Goliathian physique does fine work as Kerr in and out of the ring, stretching far beyond his Rock persona.

Yet the cinematic body blows that land hardest come squarely from the film’s domestic side. It is when Johnson’s Kerr and Emily Blunt as longtime girlfriend Dawn Staples enter a verbal arena that Safdie’s movie becomes devastating—and certainly more exciting than anything occurring inside an octagon. Johnson and

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