“Oh my God, I’m going to f*cking hell! I killed a man!” the guy shrieks. His estranged dad is the voice of reason, saying calmly, “Well, technically you killed several men.”
Welcome to the redband trailer for The Machine, starring Bert Kreischer and Mark Hamill in a story ripped from the pages of the internet, which ripped it from real life. Have an R-rated look above, and watch for Hamill hopped up on speed.
Set 23 years after the original story which inspired it, The Machine finds Bert (Kreischer) facing familial crisis and the arrival of his father (Hamill) when the ghost of his booze-soaked past arrives: a ruthless, murderous Russian mobster (Iva Babić) hellbent on kidnapping Bert back to the motherland to atone for his crimes. Together, he and his father must retrace the steps of his younger self (Jimmy Tatro) in the midst of a war between a sociopathic crime family while they attempt to find common ground.
A bit of backstory: Flashback to the late 1990s, after a Rolling Stone after dubbed real-life Kreischer “the top partying at the No. 1 party school.” The Florida State student went to spend a semeseter aboard in Russia, where he apparently majored in vodka. A chance meeting with a local mobster leads to the kid taking part in a train robbery.
Now, fast-forward to 20 years later, when another Russian gangster shows up at Bert’s home. Comedy, action and mayhem ensue, as Kreischer recounted in a stand-up routine that went viral after it was delivered in a 2016 Showtime comedy special.
Peter Atencio directed The Machine, which also stars Robert Maaser, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Jess Gabor, Rita Bernard Shaw, Nikola Đuričko, Oleg Taktarov, Amelie Villers, and Mercedes de la Cruz. The Legendary film opens wide May 25 for Memorial Day weekend via Sony Pictures.
