The story behind the true-life train robbery that got Bert Kreischer his first film close-up in 'The Machine'
LOS ANGELES — Machines — just like good comedians — aren't born, they're built. Bert Kreischer happens to be both, but it took some time.
Long after his days as a legendary hard-partying super senior at Florida State University, Kreischer's experience finding his voice in stand-up didn't really start until he learned to become a great storyteller, unveiling the truth like he strips himself of his shirt on stage — in a hysterical, honest way — with a few embellishments, of course. It's fitting that the bit that finally helped him click things into place was a story he started telling from his college frat boy days about robbing his classmates on a train in Russia during a class trip — with help from the Russian mafia.
Kreischer fans came to know the comic as "The Machine" after the debut of his 2016 Showtime special of the same name. And the viral clips of him retelling the tale became his calling card, but that's not even half the story when it comes to explaining how the classic bit snowballed into Kreischer's first feature film, "The Machine," opening this week.
The comedy-action flick is his debut in the film world done the only way Kreischer knows how — big. Using his real-life misadventures as a springboard to tell an amped-up version of the story, the comedian's past comes back to haunt him 23 years later as he and his estranged father (played by "Star Wars" legend Mark Hamill) are kidnapped back to Russia by the mafia as payback for something they say he did.
