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Bert Kreischer is living proof that truth is stranger than fiction.

In the mid-’90s, Kreischer went on a Florida State class trip to Russia, and to make a long story short, the Russian mafia forced the 22-year-old college kid to rob a passenger train that included his classmates. The Florida native somehow made it out of Russia unscathed, and after enough time had passed, he began telling the story on radio shows and podcasts until it became the focus of his viral stand-up comedy special, The Machine, in 2016. A few years later, Kreischer sold a movie version of The Machine to Legendary Entertainment’s Cale Boyter, who boiled the indirect pitch down to “The Godfather Part II meets The Hangover.”

The film’s premise revolves around Bert and his father, Albert (Mark Hamill), getting kidnapped by a Russian gangster (Iva Babić) as a form of payback for Bert stealing...

Bert Kreischer has told the story so many times that he almost seems surprised that you want to hear it again. Almost.

It’s not like it’s the Greatest Story Ever Told — it’s just a strong contender for the greatest story Kreischer has ever told, which is saying something. As a stand-up comic who sells out arenas and organizes annual summer tours with his famous friends, has a handful of popular specials on Netflix and a podcast presence to die for, who’s known for ripping his shirt...

Here’s a look at this week’s biggest premieres, parties and openings in Los Angeles and New York, including red carpets for You Hurt My Feelings, Fubar, What Am I Eating? and The Machine.

Master Gardener premiere

Director Paul Schrader and stars Joel Edgerton and Sigourney Weaver attended a special screening and Q&a in NYC on May 19 for their new Magnolia Pictures film, with support from Richard Gere.

Richard Gere, Sigourney Weaver and Joel Edgerton

Yellowjackets FYC event

The teen and adult casts from the Showtime drama teamed up for an FYC event in Los Angeles on Saturday.

Lauren Ambrose, Christina Ricci, Simone Kessell, Tawny Cypress, Warren Kole and Drew Comins Steven Krueger, Courtney Eaton, Sophie Nélisse, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Liv Hewson, Samantha Hanratty and Kevin Alves

You Hurt My Feelings premiere

Writer-director Nicole Holofcener joined stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies, Michaela Watkins, Arian Moayed, Amber Tamblyn, David Cross,...

Bert Kreischer and Mark Hamill in The Machine Photo: Screen Gems Shirtless, un-pc, and sporting the daddiest of dad bods, Bert Kreischer feels like the natural outcome of a Simpsons episode in which Homer Simpson, while drunk, shirtless, and screaming in public, accidentally becomes a popular stand-up comedian. While in college,...

Bert Kreischer and Mark Hamill in The MachinePhoto: Screen Gems

Shirtless, un-pc, and sporting the daddiest of dad bods, Bert Kreischer feels like the natural outcome of a Simpsons episode in which Homer Simpson, while drunk, shirtless, and screaming in public, accidentally becomes a popular stand-up comedian. While in college,...

“The Machine” begins with Bert Kreischer — playing a fictional version of himself — telling his therapist that he’s struggling to cut back on calling his teenage daughter a cunt. Yes, he knows he should find a nicer nickname for her and his wife of 20 years. But in his elegantly chosen words, sometimes they just act like one. The globetrotting journey that follows — in which Kreischer travels to Russia and back in order to learn that his eldest child and his partner who gave birth to her might not be cunts — is bound to tug at the heartstrings of even the most stoic fathers. Another win for feminism.

Kreischer is well aware that he’s built a career out of making a complete ass of himself. (The fact that he owes his fortune to his willingness to publicly take his shirt off is a frequent conversation topic in “The Machine.”) So...

The Machine is loud, gross, obnoxious and overbearing. It’s also disarming, quick-witted, fast moving and becomes increasingly funny as it ends up in, of all places, Russia for its payoff scenes.

Presided over, if that is the right term, by the irrepressible Bert Kreischer, the big-gutted comedian who goes by the name The Machine and prefers to appear without a shirt on whenever possible, has landed his first big feature film at age 50 and continues the same comic shtick he’s been doing for years. Lo and behold, it’s still pretty funny stuff. This is a big picture for a big guy, and Kreischer is so persistent, and persistently off the wall, that it’s finally far easier to enjoy the party than to carp and resist.

Kreischer makes a point of performing with his shirt off when at all possible, something that becomes a tad strange in...

Bert Kreischer turns a famous routine into a full-length movie with some surprising visual style but a lack of laughter

If you’re going to put a standup comedian into a big, climactic fight scene, it better be really funny. That’s just one of many rules you may not realize were in place before watching The Machine, a feature-length extension of standup comedian Bert Kreischer’s most famous routine. It’s a story about how the former Florida State University frat boy and prolific partier took a college trip to Russia, where he bumbled into confidence with the Russian mob and wound up helping some gangsters rob a train. It sounds enough like a set piece from an early-2000s studio comedy that the impulse to make a long-form version makes sense – at least on paper.

Here, Jimmy Tatro plays the college-aged Kreischer in flashbacks, but he doesn’t...

Plot: Set 23 years after the original story which inspired it, The Machine finds Bert Kreischer facing familial crisis and the arrival of his estranged father when the ghost of his booze-soaked past arrives: a murderous mobster 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 in the midst of a war between a sociopathic crime family while they attempt to find common ground.

Review: This weekend boasts two theatrical films featuring stand-up comedians with dedicated fanbases in stories about their relationship with their father. Both Sebastian Maniscalco and Bert Kreischer have performed elements of the stories at the core of their big-screen adventures, but the results could not be further apart. While About My Father is a wholesome bromance centered on the culture clash of two families, The Machine is a balls-to-the-wall action...

Disney’s return to live-action takes of their animated vault in the fullest theatrical form happens this weekend with Rob Marshall’s The Little Mermaid which is eyeing a $180M worldwide start.

The majority of that number will be made stateside with $120M for the four-day Memorial Day weekend holiday, and around $100M over three days. At $120M, Little Mermaid would be the fifth highest opening in U.S./Canada for the Friday-Monday Memorial Day weekend holiday. Pic’s overseas launch in such major markets, save Japan on June 9, begins today in France, Italy, Korea, Brazil, Germany, the UK, Spain and China joining in subsequent days. For those keeping track, Cruella was the last live-action adaptation of a Disney animated pic (she was the villain in 101 Dalmatians), however, it went day and date over Memorial Day weekend 2021 when theaters were just reopening for the summer from Covid.

Will Smith’s...

"The Machine" is a new action comedy feature, directed by Peter Atencio, inspired by a 2016 stand-up routine created by Bert Kreischer, starring Kreischer, Jimmy Tatro, Iva Babić, Stephanie Kurtzuba and Jessica Gabor, releasing May 26, 2023 in theaters:

"... 'Bert Kreischer' and his father are kidnapped by those Bert wronged 20 years ago...

"...while drunk on a college semester...

"...abroad in Russia..."

Click the images to enlarge...

"The Machine" is a new action comedy feature, directed by Peter Atencio, inspired by a 2016 stand-up routine created by Bert Kreischer, starring Kreischer, Jimmy Tatro, Iva Babić, Stephanie Kurtzuba and Jessica Gabor, releasing May 26, 2023 in theaters:

"... 'Bert Kreischer' and his father are kidnapped by those Bert wronged 20 years ago...

"...while drunk on a college semester...

"...abroad in Russia..."

Click the images to enlarge...

Sony Pictures has debuted the trailer for ‘The Machine’ featuring Mark Hamill.

Set 23 years after the original story which inspired it, The Machine finds Bert (Bert Kreischer) facing a familial crisis and the arrival of his estranged father (Mark Hamill) when the ghost of his booze-soaked past arrives: a murderous 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.

Directed by Peter Atencio, the film stars Bert Kreischer, Mark Hamill, Jimmy Tatro, Iva Babić, Robert Maaser, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Jess Gabor, Rita Bernard Shaw, Nikola Đuričko, Oleg Taktarov, Amelie Villers and Mercedes de la Cruz.

Also in trailers – “I’m a good girl… saving myself for marriage…” Hilarious trailer lands for...

It's not every stand-up's classic routines that become fodder for a movie script, but when you're Bert Kreischer and your material revolves around how you were apparently part of a train robbery in Russia years ago, you can see it happening. Check out the trailer for The Machine, starring Kreischer as himself and Mark Hamill as his dad…

Set 23 years after the original story which inspired it, The Machine (which refers to the persona Bert adopted while hanging with dodgy types in Russia years ago) finds Bert facing familial crisis and the arrival of his estranged father when the ghost of his booze-soaked past arrives: a murderous 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...

Bert (Bert Kreischer) and Sponge (Martyn Ford) in Screen Gems The Machine.

Hitting theaters on May 26 is the upcoming comedy The Machine.

Set 23 years after the original story which inspired it, The Machine finds Bert Kreischer facing familial crisis and the arrival of his estranged father (Mark Hamill) when the ghost of his booze-soaked past arrives: a murderous 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.

Based on the breakout Bert Kreischer stand-up routine, check out the red-band trailer. Grab your tickets now for with a Live pre-show with Bert May 25! Website: http://www.TheMachine.Movie

Catch the very funny Kreischer on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80238360

The cast includes Bert Kreischer,...

23 years ago, comedian Bert Kreischer was better known for his partying antics as "the top partyer at the Number One Party School in the country," according to Rolling Stone. He ended up spending a summer in Russia that went kind of haywire, earning him the nickname "The Machine" and giving him an impressive story to tell for the rest of his life about being a part of a train robbery while not even speaking Russian. His shirtless stand-up story is the stuff of internet legend and kickstarted Kreischer's career as a comedian. Now, decades later, he's starring in a movie that returns him to where it all began, with Russians, robberies, and a whole lot of ridiculous antics.

The red-band trailer has arrived for "The Machine," which follows a fictionalized version of Kreischer and his dad (played by Mark Hamill!) after they're kidnapped by Russians and forced to be a...

"Bert - take off that shirt and show those SOBs who you really are!" Sony Pictures has revealed the full red band trailer for the wild and crazy comedy movie The Machine, from comedy filmmaker Peter Atencio, known for directing "Key & Peele" and their film Keanu previously. We featured the teaser last fall, now get ready for the entire story. From Legendary Pictures, this is an adaptation of comedian Bert Kreischer's crazy (true?) story of that time he was an exchange student in Russia. He ended up studying Russian at university and while on a trip there got the nickname "The Machine" because of his mad drinking abilities. Then he unwittingly helped the Russian mafia with a train robbery. Bert's drunken past then catches up with him 20 years down the road when he and his father are kidnapped by those Bert wronged 20 years ago while drunk on a college semester abroad.

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Long before Ryan Reynolds stepped in as Deadpool, Detective Pikachu, or the co-owner of the Welsh football club Wrexham A.F.C., most people knew him as the star of "National Lampoon's Van Wilder." But did you know that the titular seventh-year senior was actually based on a real person? The charismatic character was based on a Florida State University student that was profiled by Rolling Stone in 1997. Dubbed "the top partyer at the Number One Party School in the country," that student's name was Bert Kreischer.

Now known for his stand-up comedy (which he performs without a shirt on), the St. Petersburg native has proven that his life gets much Wilder than anything that inspired Reynolds' breakout role. One...

Comedian and star Bert Kreischer’s The Machine will laugh its way into theaters on May 26, the beginning of the long Memorial Day weekend. Legendary Star Wars actor Mark Hamill co-stars opposite Kreischer.

Sony and Legendary announced the film’s release date on Wednesday. The two companies recently announced a multi-year distribution deal.

The film is an adaptation of a story Kreischer told onstage about getting involved with the Russian mob while studying abroad in college. The tale of Kreischer’s exploits quickly went viral and has been viewed more than 85 million times, according to Legendary.

Peter Atencio (Key & Peele, Keanu) is directing The Machine from a script by Kevin Biegel and Scotty Landes.

Set 23 years after the original story which inspired it, The Machine finds Kresischer facing familial crisis and the arrival of his estranged father (Hamill) when the ghost of his booze-soaked past arrives: a murderous mobster (Iva Babić...

Sony Pictures will open Legendary Pictures’ The Machine on May 26.

The Peter Atencio directed movie takes place 23 years after the original story that inspired it. In the pic, comedian-star Bert Kreischer faces a familial crisis and the arrival of his estranged father (Mark Hamill) when the ghost of his booze-soaked past arrives: a murderous 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.

Kreischer will perform an exclusive live pre-show event at 6 p.m. May 25 in Los Angeles at a Tba theater location. The pre-show, which will be simulcast across 1,000+ theaters nationwide, will be followed by the first preview screening of the film. Tickets will go on sale at a later date.

Sometimes, comedians tell stories that are much too funny to be true. Surely no one's life actually contains mind-boggling hijinks, quotable one-liners, and situations that so carefully toe the line between hilarious and life-threatening? And yet, Bert Kreischer walks among us, living a life that sounds more akin to an R-rated comedy than reality. Which is why it makes so much sense that his stories keep getting grafted onto the big screen.

Here's where it started: when Kreischer was in college in the late '90s, he became the topic of a Rolling Stone article that dubbed him "the top partyer at the Number One Party School." That story not only gave him the push he needed to move to NYC and pursue a career in stand-up comedy but also served as the inspiration for National Lampoon's Van Wilder. Just like that — thanks to some Hollywood magic — Kreischer's life became a movie.

"Oh my god… I'm your origin story!" An early teaser trailer has debuted for a new comedy from filmmaker Peter Atencio, known for directing "Key & Peele" and their film Keanu previously. Produced by Legendary Pictures, the film is an adaptation of comedian Bert Kreischer's crazy (true?) story of that time he was an exchange student in Russia. He ended up studying Russian at university and while on a trip there got the nickname "The Machine" because of his drinking abilities. Then he unwittingly helped the Russian mafia with a train robbery. Bert's drunken past then catches up with him 20 years down the road when he and his father are kidnapped by those Bert wronged 20 years ago while drunk on a college semester abroad. The comedy stars Iva Babic, Mark Hamill, Bert Kreischer, Jimmy Tatro, Nikola Djuričko, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Martyn Ford, and others. This looks crazy so far!