Film Review: Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice

Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice
Director: BenDavid Grabinski
Mad Chance Productions
Streaming on Hulu: 03.27.2026

There’s a bit of a self-feeding monster that comes with filmmakers being die-hard movie buffs: the deeper your love of cinema, the more likely you are to start remixing it instead of reinventing it. Every frame becomes a reference, every twist a callback. Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice mixes a flavorful cocktail, and a Back to the Future-style time travel premise smashed into a blood-splattered Quentin Tarantino riff with some John Woo gun ballet flair might sound like something you’ve never quite seen before, but yeah, you have. We’ve all seen every ingredient many times separately, and putting them together simply dilutes the flavor.

Mike (James Marsden, X-Men, Paradise), a worn-down hitman working for crime boss Sosa (Keith David, The Princess and the Frog, American Fiction), is ready to quit the life and run away with Alice (Eiza González, Ambulance, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare) the estranged wife of his impulsive partner, Nick (Vince Vaughn, Wedding Crashers, Freaky). Their plan collides with reality at a lavish party Sosa throws to celebrate the release of his dimwitted son, Jimmy Boy (Jimmy Tatro, Theater Camp, Scream 7), where Nick pulls Mike aside for what seems like one last job. Mike expects a setup, and he’s not wrong — but it’s far more complicated than he imagines. The hit has already happened, and the mark was Mike. A guilt-ridden future version of Nick has traveled back in time to stop his past self from carrying it out, hoping to save Mike and undo the damage tied to a looming threat known as The Baron. Over the course of one night, Mike, Alice, Nick and Future Nick scramble through a maze of shifting loyalties, armed henchmen and fragile relationships, all while trying to outrun a fate that may already be sealed.

Writer-director BenDavid Grabinski (Happily) brings a mix of talent and enthusiasm, though he’s got more of the latter. The movie has a strong sense of fun, which is quite watchable, and gives a fairly convincing impression of a much more clever film at times. The script is at its best when it’s diving into character dynamics and riffing on Gilmore Girls, more iffy when it’s trying to be creative science fiction and an abyssal mess when it’s just piling on the F-bombs and gangster movie cliches. It also tries to sell us on the belief that an endless body count of morally ambiguous characters is entirely justified in order to save one morally ambiguous character whose chief virtue is that his name happens to be in the title. Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice still manages to be an enjoyably disposable movie that’s well suited for streaming on a service you’ve already paid for, but it’s hardly the “can’t miss” original experience that it wants you to believe it to be.

The cast is all game, with Vaughn in particular giving a strong star turn, bringing his signature roguish and sarcastic bravado to two different versions of Nick. Marsden, best known for playing the clean cut nice guy opposite Wolverine and Sonic the Hedgehog, doesn’t fit as neatly into a world of unsavory characters as Vaughn, who hangs out with Mel Gibson and Donald Trump in real life and is only raising his standards by associating with the Mafia. González is easily the most likable of the three, though the character is underwritten, and the always-excellent David deserves a character worthy of his formidable presence, and Tatro is simply obnoxious. The highlight of the movie, by far, is Ben Schwartz (Parks and Recreation, House of Lies) as Symon, the science whiz who invents the time machine. It’s a small role, but the opening credits sequence where he works on his machine and performs a lively rendition of Billy Joel’s “Why Should I Worry?” from the soundtrack to Oliver & Company — with all of the trademark manic energy you’d expect from Ben Schwartz — is almost  worth a month’s subscription to Hulu by itself.

Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice is good enough to be a guilty pleasure if you’re not particular about who is getting killed as long as there’s plenty of shooting, and a strong vehicle for Vaughn. If you like crime comedies in the vein of The Whole Nine Yards, you should be good with this one. Personally, I’ll be watching the title sequence many times, but I’m unlikely to screen the entire movie again. —Patrick Gibbs

Read more film reviews from Patrick Gibbs:
Film Review: They Will Kill You
Film Review: Undertone