The Machine | 2023 Movies RANKED - Episode 24

Follow along as RANKED reviews a new movie release every week of 2023, slowly compiling the best films of the year into our sacred hierarchical list.

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Previous Episode 2023 RANKED List:
1. Beau Is Afraid
2. Infinity Pool
3. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
4. John Wick: Chapter 4
5. Tetris
6. Air
7. Creed III
8. Fast X
9. Shazam! Fury of the Gods
10. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
11. M3GAN
12. missing
13. Scream VI
14. The Super Mario Bros. Movie
15. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
16. Renfield
17. Evil Dead Rise
18. The Pope’s Exorcist
19. Magic Mike’s Last Dance
20. Knock at the Cabin
21. Plane
22. Cocaine Bear
23. Knights of the Zodiac

The Machine is one of the strangest premises for a film ever, not just because of its oddball story about the Russian mob and a young comedian being forced into committing a terrible crime, but because at some point you realize you’re watching that person’s attempt to alleviate their guilt by apologizing and making things right, not in real life to the people he actually wronged, but to fictionalized versions of those people several decades later.

After all, the movie actually opens and closes with therapy sessions for Bert Kreischer, AKA The Machine, and everything in between is ALSO a therapy session for Bert, a fictional sequel to his absurd Russia story where he returns to the scene of his crimes with new gangsters to reminisce about the good times hanging out with other gangsters that forced him to rob an entire train of people, something objectively horrible.

But as humans, we’ve evolved the ability to laugh at the horrors of life so that we might glean some joy amongst such dreadful existential sorrow.

This film showcases that fine line between comedy and drama, how something terrible can either induce tears of sorrow, or tears of laughter. In this case, that laughter made the storyteller millions of dollars. Kreischer, a man famous for taking off his shirt and being obnoxiously funny, actually managed to pull this off, and according to this film may in fact feel really bad about it, and made this movie so that he could assuage that guilt. But as far as I’m concerned, Albert, you took life’s lemons and made sweet lemon drops for everyone to enjoy so it’s all good.

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