Directed By Peter Atencio

Starring – Bert Kreischer, Mark Hamill, Martyn Ford

The Plot – Bert’s drunken past catches up with him 20 years down the road when he and his father (Hamill) are kidnapped by those Bert wronged 20 years ago while drunk on a college semester abroad in Russia.

Rated R for strong violence, pervasive language, drug use and some sexual references

THE MACHINE – Official Red Band Trailer (HD) – YouTube

POSITIVES

Just when you think Hollywood has run the well of creative ideas dry, along comes “The Machine”, an alternate reality of a plot constructed entirely from the origins of a stand-up comedian joke. This sounds a bit trivial in effectively translating to a feature length film, and while the results are debatable based entirely on the audience, one thing that can’t be debated is the compelling idea of this being the cinematic materialization of Kreischer, both in tone and execution, with the coveted R-rating that alludes to the idea that anything can, and often will happen throughout the duration. Beyond this, the performances are understandably nothing award-worthy, but they do surmise a couple of notable instances that make the most of the occasion, even if the material they’re given does them no favors in polishing their craft. Hamill is obviously the heavyweight in spectacle here, with a rampant personality and big screen captivity that sells every one of the often times ludacrious lines of dialogue that he’s asked to convey, all the while sharing a believable fatherly bond with Bert that feels realized with the kind of nuances and authenticity of Kreischer’s own real life father. Equally integral is the supporting turn of Jimmy Tatro, who plays the younger aged Bert to perfection, with a benign simplicity that makes it easier to believe and see the symmetry between the two sides emulating the same person. Aside from the performances, there are some surprising feats of technical achievement that establish some form of artistic merit into the personality of the presentation, with visual cues that furnish an immersive magnetism to the beats of the story. The first happens during scenes of Bert being under the influence, with framed blurs and occasional pixelation obscuring facial registries as he tries to remember identities in the foreground of the over-arching narrative. This is followed by some beautiful scene transitions between the movie’s dual timelines, past and present, that visually conjure connective tissue between them, with peeling backgrounds and similarities in set designs allowing for time to transfer before our very eyes.

NEGATIVES

If you weren’t a fan of Bert Kreischer’s brand of comedy before the movie began, “The Machine” isn’t likely to change your opinion. I say this because I myself find Kreischer’s stand-up a bit one-note and overzealously abrasive, often leading to annoyance in the consistency of his routine. This is “The Machine” to a tee, because not only does its comedy fail nearly one-hundred percent of the time, with various punchlines that don’t effectively register due to an absence of an alluring set-up, but also in the ear-piercing annoyances of a sound design that seriously feels like it is continuously turned to eleven, even away from intense action sequences. The former often spends its time pointing out Kreischer’s “Titties”, which wasn’t funny the first time it was highlighted, and certainly wasn’t funny during the forty-fifth time it attempted such, pointing out the crude and lewd of his act that doesn’t effectively translate to the brand of humor that lends itself to the screen, and the latter, with its abundance of action-heavy sequences and Kreischer’s anxious screaming that can only be compared to a raccoon being caught in the spoke of an 18-wheeler, is improperly deafening during moments it clearly doesn’t require such blanketing, leaving me often clutching my ears like the screams of children I couldn’t properly evade, a perfect metaphor for Kreischer. Beyond this, the script itself is the very definition of by-the-numbers, with Russian stereotypical-heavy characters, uninspired action, and convoluted continuity breeding a narrative that exhausted my interests by the film’s midway point. To say that this is a mentally taxing engagement is the understatement of the year, so instead I will say that I was bored to tears with the complexity of a story that essentially should only use a brief 80 minutes to articulate it, but here balloons to 107 minutes that attempts to throw everything at the screen that it can to see what sticks, but with little compelling success along the way. Then there’s Kreischer himself, who basks in the glow of a film made entirely for him, but one that he surprisingly adds very little positively towards it. Whether in the wooden undercooked consistency of his acting undercutting the tension and gravitas of the film’s most meaningful moments, or his talents for humor entirely lending themselves towards screeching every line of dialogue that often doesn’t require enthused deliveries. Kreischer’s fictional story is compelling enough, but becomes tedious in having to spend so much time with a clearly illustrated dirtbag, with an evolution by film’s end that attempts to convey some meaningful change from within him, but with no proof for the pudding in narrative to back-up that claim. Finally, while the film’s third act does begin to open up to the more insane side of the movie’s obvious B-movie rendering, the entirety of the engagement before it isn’t expressive enough to faithfully live up to its duty in supplanting the madness and mayhem of the idea, especially one that lives and breathes in the mind of a madman. Heading into this film, I was expecting the kind of batshit insanity that caters to a cult audience, but instead I was left with a very routine and by-the-numbers action comedy, and one that often seems confused on the kind of film that it’s capably attempting to make.

OVERALL
“The Machine” is Bert Kreischer’s attempt at the kind of mainstream success that made Eddie Murphy or Kevin Hart overnight sensations. Unfortunately, for him, the niche kind of humor that supplants his stage show doesn’t transfer accordingly to the screen, leading to limited laughs and boring droughts of entertainment value that, thankful for him, condemn this purely to forgettable territory, instead of the unchained batshit insanity that could’ve oiled a finely tuned machine.

My Grade: 4/10 or D-