Bert Kreischer is not a personality I’m familiar with. And having no idea as to who he was in a professional capacity meant The Machine – a star vehicle centred around his most famous stand-up story – was a film I entered with zero expectations.
Perhaps that was what ultimately got me over the line with Peter Atencio‘s comedic actioner, with The Machine managing to entertain in a relatively cohesive fashion for the better part of its 112 minute running time. Now, at 112 minutes it’s indeed about 20 minutes too long, and the energy and rapid humour that fuels the film’s first half can’t quite be sustained, but for this type of outing – one built off a clearly divisive personality and a singular story – it’s nowhere near as obnoxious as it could have been.
Kreischer – here playing a presumably heightened version of himself – is a stand-up comedian, dubbed “The Machine”, whose claim to fame rose off the back of a story he relayed from his youth about when he partied with the Russian mob on a student trip and subsequently robbed a trainload of people. Hilarious, right?
That’s the thing, The Machine‘s central story isn’t all that amusing. As played out by by Jimmy Tatro as a strapping 20-something Bert, the film’s flashback sequences surrounding his wild youth and how he utilised the pop culture of the late 90’s to make himself seem more humorous than he was aren’t all that funny. It’s extended exposition that we just don’t need – a shame as Tatro has a likeability to him that transcends his character’s personality – and had the Kevin Biegel/Scotty Landes-penned script exorcised much of this, The Machine may have flowed a little tighter.
Now, what remains isn’t exactly ground-breaking, overtly witty cinema, but there’s an energy to Kreischer’s eventual story, and it helps that in spite of his relative crudeness he’s watchable. That eventual story ends up bringing Bert and his father, Albert (Mark Hamill, having a bloody good time), to Russia, where the sleek, villain-in-heels Irina (Iva Babic, camping it up just enough) demands Bert re-trace his two decade-plus steps and locate a watch that belonged to her mobster father. There’s a whole subplot surrounding Irina and her perfectly cheek-boned brother (Robert Maaser) wanting to find the watch in order to prove their worth as the next-in-line to the family business, but it really just plays out as filler so the film can add in a few extra moments of conflict and, subsequently, bloodshed.
There isn’t much here that demands to be seen on the big screen – if ever there was a movie that screamed “streaming”, it’s this – but you have to hand it to Sony Pictures for releasing this in theatres, playing into the welcome mind frame of a decade gone by where smaller films such as this still got the most minute of look-ins – even if it barely lasted as a theatrical engagement. Kreischer fans are surely The Machine‘s target audience, and I suspect they’ll gel enthusiastically with his brand of comedy, but for the uninitiated (like myself) there’s light enjoyment to be had in an exaggerated piece that may stroke its creators ego, but at least does so with a healthy sense of humour.
THREE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
The Machine is now screening in Australian theatres.
