Everett-Collection
The machine is loud, rude, obnoxious and bossy. It’s also disarming, quick-witted, fast-paced, and gets funnier and funnier as it winds up, of all places, in Russia for its paid scenes.
Chaired, if that’s the right term, by the irrepressible Bert Kreischer, the big-mouthed comedian who calls himself The Machine and prefers to appear shirtless whenever possible, landed his first major feature film at 50 and continues to the same comedic shtick he’s been doing for years. There you go, it’s still pretty funny stuff. It’s a big picture for a big guy, and Kreischer is so persistent, and constantly off the wall, that it’s ultimately much easier to enjoy the party than to pike and resist.
Kreischer makes a point of playing with his shirt when possible, which gets a little odd in Russia, and even less so in Florida, where we first meet Bert and his family at a big birthday party. outdoor birthday party. The man is both an authoritarian pater familias and child’s play, so much he wants his children to be happy, successful and love him. The guy seems obnoxious at first but gains a viewer within minutes, so funny and insinuating he is. But in the dramatic arena, the big guy is so loud and persistent that he drives his loved ones away.
Few guys with a girth like Kreischer run with their shirt on whenever possible, but that’s just one of the ways the man makes an impression you can’t forget. Before you know it, you like him despite his bluster and the fact that he’s fed up with the rest of his family, at least for now.
These domestic misadventures and errors of judgment leave him almost alone, how The machine makes a surprising return to the Russia of a few years ago, where much of the comic drama takes place. Following in Kreischer’s footsteps – the guy spent a semester there over 20 years ago – the film kicks into high gear just as it also reaches its comedic heights with wacky hilarity involving both the train and their destination, where any number of fates will be decided.
One character who plays a major role in this part of the story is the ultra-capable Irena (Iva Babić), a sensational fighter perhaps surpassed only by Alexi (Robert Maaser, who could easily pass for the offspring of the villain of Robert Shaw in From Russia with love). Together, they form an exceptional team and the fights that ensue are quite spectacular.
Seeing the Russia presented here in the wake of the current war presents a strange dislocation between dramatic fantasy and reality. Even so, it’s entirely possible to sink into the goofy comedy that seems to spring from The machine without thinking too much about Russia or anything else in the real world, so far-fetched the stuff that ended up on screen.
Director Peter Atencio, best known for directing 54 episodes of Key & Peele, keeps the actors on their toes and pulls off a good deed near the end, and Mark Hamill creates unexpected characterization unlike anything he’s ever done before.
Title: The machine
Distributer: Sony Pictures
Director: Peter Atencio
Screenwriters: Kevin Biegel, Scotty Landes
Discard: Bert Kreischer, Mark Hamill, Iva Babić, Robert Maaser, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Jess Gabor, Rita Bernard Shaw, Nikola Đuričko, Oleg Taktarov, Amelie Child-Villers and Mercedes de la Cruz
Rating: R
Runtime: 1h52