The Machine

The past comes back to haunt famous stand-up comedian Bert Kreischer when a murderous mobster kidnaps Bert so that he can atone for the crimes he committed in Russia while he was hanging out with Russian gangsters during a college class trip. Along with his estranged father, in order to survive and make it back home again, Bert must retrace the half-remembered steps of his much younger and much drunken self, all while a Russian crime family wages a bloody civil war.

In case you’ve never heard of Albert Charles “Bert” Kreischer Jr., the subject of this film, he is a real-life stand-up comedian. He’s famous enough that he’s got a couple of Netflix specials. I’ve never seen any of his work, except for an episode of Dinner Time Live with David Chang, where he seemed like an okay dude. In 1997, while attending Florida State University, Bert was the focus of a Rolling Stone article. Recounting his partying hijinks, which included bouts of heavy drinking and public nudity, the article dubbed him as the Top Partier at the Number One Party School in the entire country. Because of this article, Oliver Stone optioned the film rights to his life, but when the development deal with Stone fell through, one of the writers changed Bert's name and sold the script to National Lampoon. This became the 2002 film, National Lampoon's Van Wilder, starring Ryan Reynolds.

Bert claims that he’s never seen the movie.

Bert is known for being being a wild and drunken lout who performs stand-up comedy while shirtless. He is also known for his storytelling. His most well-known story is about how he earned the nickname "The Machine.” And while it is most likely one that is embellished a little bit for the jokes, it’s a mostly true story about how he inadvertently helped the Russian mafia rob everyone aboard the train to Moscow, including his classmates, while on a college trip to Russia.

Which is how The Machine opens, with Bert doing a stand-up special on Netflix, where he recounts this wild and booze-soaked class trip to Russia. This special is being watched by an old man in Moscow, who angrily snatches a gun from his desk and shoots his tv, demanding loudly that “The Machine return what he has stolen!”

And thus, our semi-true, but also not at all true, story begins…

Bert Kreischer is one of those guys. Now well past middle-age, up til now, he’s led a usually loud, probably drunk, and always ready to party kind of life. He’s the kind of guy who has a story that starts “the second time I pooped my pants in public…” If you ever needed somebody to “get the party going” or if you wanted to see someone do a really long keg-stand, or maybe jump off something high onto something that will not break his fall, or maybe fart gasoline across a fire… who knows, whatever it is… Bert is your guy. Because he is most likely one of the guys who were originally responsible for unironically creating the “Hold my beer” meme, all of these stunts, mishaps, and crazy misadventures have left Bert with a lot of stories to tell, and the guy knows how to tell a good story, which he does often, usually on stage, while shirtless, with his big hairy beer-belly on display for all to see.

This has made him rich and famous…. the lucky bastard.

But as it turns out, Dean Vernon Wormer of Faber College was right, and being fat, drunk, and stupid really is no way to go through life, and it’s begun to leave its mark on Bert. After drunkenly live-streaming his teenage daughter’s arrest, the result of his own idiot asshole actions, he finally truly sees himself for the first time and he decides to clean up, change his ways, and even step away from the limelight for a bit.

So, Bert is honestly trying to change, but he’s still really bad at it. Despite being in thearapy, the truth is, Bert is an oblivious and selfish asshole, a common trait often shared by those hard partying, center-of-attention “one of those guys” and he thinks that people need to acknowledge his changes, when he hasn’t really changed, and he certainly hasn’t sincerely tried to repair any of the damage he’s done. His wife says the problem is Bert’s relationship with his father, which Bert doesn’t agree with, but when his father Albert (Mark Hamill) shows up at the debacle Bert accidentally turns his daughter’s birthday into, things only get worse.

And that’s when the Russian mafia shows up, looking for a pocket watch that Bert supposedly stole back during that class trip in the late 90s, and since he doesn’t have it, and in fact, doesn’t even remember it, they take him and his father back to Russia and tell him that he needs to find that watch… or else.

Once Bert gets to Russia, it turns out The Machine has got quite the reputation over there. Ice in his veins. Could walk through walls. Drink more than any man. Bert is a god damn legend to them, and his story is like a modern day bit of Russia folklore all about the pinnacle of what it is to be a man, so the Russians he meets are generally unimpressed by the older, sweatier, fatter, Dad-bod reality of Bert.

In the end, like a Floridian Popeye, Bert must call upon his Dad Strength, and an alcohol tolerance level that has been honed over many a’years of party-harty-ing, in order to find the pocket watch, kick some Russian ass, and make sure that not only does he and his father survive this mess left over from his wayward youth, but that they each learn a little bit about each other… and themselves.

Reminiscent of old school 1980s action comedies like The Golden Child, Running Scared, Spies Like Us, among many others, with its wild, bawdy, and generally kind of gross story, not to mention a surprising amount of violence and blood, The Machine is at least slightly less problematic then those 40-plus year old films when it comes to its jokes. But despite these kinds of films not maybe being as common as they used to be, it’s a pretty familiar story overall.

I think the main reason that these types of films aren’t that common anymore is because the set-up isn’t funny. The drunken asshole, be they Dean Martin, Otis from Mayberry, Arthur from New York, or Stu, Doug, Phil, and Alan in Vegas… they’re not funny anymore. They’re alcoholics. They have a problem. Their actions hurt people in their lives, and it’s too hard to ignore that anymore and just laugh. It’s just too hard to make a joke about “funny” drunk driving, right? Although, yes, the Wolf of Wall Street quaalude scene is truly an incredible thing. My point is, while I don’t want this to be a sad movie, or even a self-reflective one, it’s just hard to laugh at it, because the things that the main character has done are bad.

What I appreciated about this film is that it recognizes this too, that this shit is bad, and that Bert needs to change, and not in a “drunken man-child husband makes a big grand effort in the end, and his ever-enduring wife, who has only been portrayed as a nag and a scold, has no other choice but to continue to love and tolerate him for one more day” with the obvious implication that there will be a sequel full of even wackier drunk man-child hijinks soon enough.

It doesn’t do that, so that was good.

Still, this film is also supposed to be silly, funny, sometimes gross, and entertaining, and it is, I laughed. It’s also fair to say that The Machine is yet another “white man-child who doesn’t want to grown up” story. You’re either in or you’re out on that kind of stuff. It’s cool if you hear this and you’re like “No, thank you,” but still, I think it’s important to note whenever one of these films have aspirations other than just being a big stupid good time.

And while I’m not trying to unreasonably puff this film up, I want to highlight those aspirations, whether they fully succeed or not. What I really liked is the train robbery, the search for the watch, fighting all the Russians, all the drunken loutishness and fart humor, basically Bert’s whole entire life of drunken antics as The Machine—the story that in real life, Bert is most known for telling during his stand-up performances—it’s clearly shown to be really shitty. It’s not cool, it’s sad, something that not only harmed him, his family, his friends, and his classmates, (in the film) it also ruined the lives of strangers, and even impacted the course of the Russian mob too. People died because of Bert’s actions (in the movie only, presumably). The consequences for him living as a selfish asshole has a body count, literally and metaphorically.

I was really impressed by this. This whole film, in a metatextual sense, while admittedly also being a celebration of the whole “The Machine” thing he does, it is undeniably a complete refutation of his whole idiom, of his entire stand-up persona. This is a very brave thing for a performer to do, to announce to the world that this is no longer me, and I kind of wish it never had been.

On top of that, for all its sophomoric idiot dude humor, The Machine is ultimately a story of redemption, and most importantly, it stresses that you can only be redeemed once you’ve acknowledged your wrong-doing, the harm you’ve caused, and to then try to make amends, and that when you do so, it isn’t for your benefit or to get accolades, but just because it’s the right thing to do, all the while accepting that sometimes, the damage has been done, and while there’s just no way to truly repair it, you still try, you still make the attempt, and then accept the answer from the harmed party. This is a film that says you can be an ignorant asshole, but you don’t have to stay that way.

The whole idea is that bad things that were done in ignorance are not cool, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a bad person. You’re only a bad person when you are aware that you’re being an asshole, that you’re aware of the harm you’re causing, and instead of trying to be better, you obstinately double down, and deliberately continue to be a terrible and selfish asshole who hurts others, and only cares about themselves… which is what the overwhelming majority of White America, across all demographics, are doing in this country right now, unfortunately, having double-downed on their doubling-down ever since Obama won his second term.

Ahem…

So, the best thing about this movie is that its central message is clear. I’m not saying this is a high-brow film or nothing, but in amongst all its fun and brouhaha, the whole point is that you should want to be better a person because it’s simply the right thing to do, and that becoming a better person means putting in the work, and that if you don’t do this, it’s because you’re a bad person. Simple and clear.

I love that.

Unfortunately most of the film’s audience, the true blue hardcore fans of the guy who was once “the Top Partier at the Number One Party School in the entire country,” the ones who probably need to hear this message the most, will probably completely miss it, mostly because of the loutish and sophomoric idiot humor the message is wrapped up in. This is always a danger whenever you’re making art, if you make the wrapping paper too cool, people can miss the present inside. For example, the majority of the mega-fans who love Fight Club and Starship Troopers still have zero fucking clue what those movies were about.

Ah, well… c’est la vie.

I did appreciate the film’s accurate depiction of drunken fat guy strength though. Also, it’s always good to see Mark Hamill. Although, at this point, all I hear whenever he speaks now is the Joker.

Also:

Russian guy: “So… you know how to fight?”

Bert: “I went to Florida State. All we know how to do is fight, fuck, and drink. And I can't fuck worth a shit.”

…That’s a pretty good line.