A One Mann’s Movies review of “The Machine” (2023).
There have been two recent examples of US ‘national treasures’ that have appeared in films who are relatively unknown in the UK. In 2019 there was Mr Rogers, as portrayed by Tom Hanks, in “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood“. And very recently, it was the author Judy Blume and her book “Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret“. Now, it seems with “The Machine”, we have a third: Bert Kreischer.
The film assumes from the get-go that you KNOW that he is a famous stand-up comedian. We hardly hear any of his set, which seems to be mostly him stripping to his waist and being boorishly American! I guess it would be the equivalent of us sending a film starring Romesh Ranganathan to US cinemas.
Anyhoo, is it any good? Unfortunately, sometimes humour doesn’t travel well.
I saw this as a Cineworld Unlimited preview. The film opens in the UK on Friday June 2nd 2023.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
Plot Summary:
The US stand-up comedian Bert Kreischer has made a good living from recounting a story from his youth where he assisted one of the Russian ‘train-mafia’ gangs in robbing the passengers on the train as his alter ego ‘The Machine’. But his routine comes to the attention of one of his victims (Jovan Savic) – the head of a now big mafia family. And he dispatches his daughter Irina (Iva Babic) to get back a family heirloom that was stolen.
Certification:
UK: 15; US: R. (From the BBFC: “Very strong language, strong violence, gore, drug misuse, sex references.”).
Talent:
Starring: Bert Kreischer, Jimmy Tatro, Mark Hamill, Iva Babic, Robert Maaser.
Directed by: Peter Atencio.
Written by: Kevin Biegel & Scotty Landes.
Twitter Handle: #TheMachine, #TheMachineMovie.
Definitely going to f***ing hell. Kreischer lets off a lucky shot. (Source: Columbia Pictures Corporation).
“The Machine” Review:
Positives:
- There is one good belly-laugh in the film, involving a poorly aimed punch. It’s something I’ve never seen done in a film before, and it is genuinely funny.
- It’s great to see Mark Hamill in a film. And although over-acting, he’s the best thing in the film. The “missionary” scene where he is high on drugs is great fun.
- The production is quite glossy, with some lovely on-location shots in Moscow. This clearly means that the film has been “on the shelf” for a good few years: I presume the production company was waiting for a time when Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine was put to bed and people wouldn’t go “ooh, Russia, really?”. And in the end, they thought “Sod it, let’s put it out”!
- A mention here for Eleanor Infante, the film editor. There are some genuinely “wow, that’s clever” bits of match-cutting. In one, two vapour jet trails turn into two lines of coke on a table. And in a second a shot of walking on a patterned train carpet melds into walking on a grassy beach in a flashback scene.
Negatives:
- I just didn’t find this funny. I had three proper laughs in the whole film (two of which are shown in the trailer). There might have been a few smiles in between these, but most of the time I was rolling my eyes thinking “this is really lame”.
- Kreischer may have his fans in the US. But I’m afraid I found him just plain annoying.
Summary Thoughts on “The Machine”
I know I’ve listed four positive bullets here and only two negative ones. But a comedy film really lives or dies on whether it makes you laugh or not, and this one just didn’t meet the 6-laughs test. It’s juat about watchable and passes the time. But I really didn’t think it was very good.
[fblike]
Trailer for “The Machine”
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwDKLEaJxMk . Note: this is the red-band trailer.
