‘The Machine’ Stars Bert Kreischer, Mark Hamill Talk Having ‘Surprised’ Reaction of New Film (Exclusive)

Bert Kreischer is known for his story of being with Russian mobsters while on a college trip. Now the stand-up comedian is living out his true story again with Hollywood legend Mark Hamill in the new film The Machine, which is out in theatres now. PopCulture.com spoke exclusively to Kreischer and Hamill, who said fans will be “surprised” when watching the movie. 

“It’s fun when you don’t know anything about the movie and you go into it and you go, ‘This isn’t what I expected,” Kreischer exclusively told PopCulture. “That’s the best when you see a movie and you go, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.’ When they told me about Footloose when I was a kid, I go, ‘These kids can’t dance. Am I supposed to like this?’ And then I came out and I was like, ‘I want to start dancing.’ I saw The Karate Kid the same way. I didn’t know what I was expecting. And that’s the beauty of this movie. We kept all the jokes out of the trailer. I think it’s going to be a lot bigger than anyone thinks it is. It’s hilarious.”

Kreischer stars as a fictionalized version of himself, while Hamill plays his father, Albert Kreischer, who doesn’t believe his son’s story about the Russian mob. That all changes when a Russian mob kidnaps both of them to atone for something they say Bert did 23 years ago. 

For Hamill, he said The Machine is something very new for him. “When I read this script, my kids will ask me, ‘So what’s it like?’ I said, ‘Well, it’s a sailor on a submarine. It’s like aliens set on a submarine. There’s always something you can compare it to,’” Hamill said. “They said after I read The Machine, ‘What’s it like?’ I said, ‘You tell me.’ It’s not like anything I’ve ever read. And that’s a real plus. It’s so original and so outrageous. It’s just a perfect escapism movie. You can just forget about anything going on in your life that you don’t like and watch desperate people in a desperate situation acting really, really stupid. Moronic behavior on a level of almost art.”

Kreischer said he was pitching two different movies when producer Cale Boyter heard the idea of The Machine. When he bought it, I was pitching another movie, two movies, and he was like, ‘I’ll do it.’ I was like, ‘What?” And he is like, ‘I’ll make a movie with you,’” Kreischer explained. “‘Which one do you want to make?’ And I was like, ‘Well, if I get to make a movie, I want to make The Machine.’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, why didn’t you pitch that?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know, because if it’s good, then I’ll get kidnapped by the Russian Mafia.’ And then he just looked at me and he goes, ‘Sold. That’s our movie right there. It’s part Godfather II meets The Hangover. I love it.’”

The Machine is Kreischer’s first featured movie, and he said he admittedly “can’t act.” But Hamill gave the 50-year-old a lot of credit for the work he did while filming. “Acting is listening, and Bert listens,” Hamill explained. “I mean, he listens and he reacts. So that’s all you need to do. But in terms of casting, I mean, the people that are playing this sociopathic Russian family, they’re so good. It’s like they’re almost in a different movie. They are in a very serious spy movie, and it’s just a wonderful fish-out-of-water comedy for the two of us being kidnapped by Iva Babić, who’s wonderful in the film. Everybody. I mean, a lot of these actors I’d never seen before, and they all do such a great job. It’s a wonderful ensemble, a movie where everybody gets a chance to shine.”