DRAMA; 2hr 3min
STARRING: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Ryan Bader
All out: Johnson
In 1997, fighter Mark Kerr (Johnson) is a 260-pound colossus who dwarfs most puny humans. He’s going all out to keep himself that way, no matter what the cost, in Uncut Gems writer-director Benny Safdie’s visceral biopic. To Safdie’s MMA (mixed martial arts) powerhouse, “Winning is the best feeling there is.” Mark has never lost a fight, and while outwardly he’s as quietly courteous as ever, behind closed doors, the opioid-cushioned treadmill of endurance to which he is shackled is beginning to wear him down. The explosive tempers that flare between Mark and his fiercely protective girlfriend, Dawn Staples (Blunt), will reach a blistering flashpoint when a bout in Japan fails to go Mark’s way.
The silkily manicured Dawn is now in the impossible position of attempting to do her utmost for a man who is anybody’s idea of too many meaty handfuls: by this low point, Mark has devolved into a volcanic, anguished addict who smashes a door as if it were plywood and into whose gleaming shell a phenomenal Johnson all but disappears.
Pushing the body to its limits necessarily goes hand-in-fist with an extreme state of mind. By 2000, Mark has ditched his meds, determined to remake himself in a gruelling quest to take back what almost broke him, supported at every thundering step by his close friend, Mark Coleman (Bader). As fellow trench warriors, the two Marks share a fixation with which Johnson can also manifestly empathise. His immersion in the physicality of performative violence is a deep dive into pain under pressure.
