Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice
Writer/director BenDavid Grabinski's Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice is a crime comedy with a sci-fi twist. On the night of Sosa's (Keith David) son Jimmy Boy (Jimmy Tatro) being released from prison, Quick Draw Mike (James Marsden) learns that he's been set up as the snitch responsible for Jimmy Boy's prison stint and now is marked for death. The person who framed him is Mike's longtime partner in crime Nick (Vince Vaughn) whose wife Alice (Eiza González) Mike has been sleeping with. However, there is some good news as someone has arrived to help save Mike. The problem? It's also Nick.
An uneven film helped immensely every time González is on-screen, and works fine when Vaughn and Marsden carry the story on their own (especially when it leans into the kooky), Grabinski's film struggles mightily every time we leave this bubble to watch what might be the lamest group of criminals ever captured on film. The sci-fi slant of a future Nick arriving in time to try and prevent the tragedy he caused, while also fighting his present self, helps elevates what it otherwise a pretty throwaway gangster comedy.
The goofy nature of the film, where most of the bumbling criminals feel about as dangerous as a stiff wind, doesn't help in selling the danger that Mike is supposedly in. Despite the supposed stakes, there's almost no tension throughout the film and the dueling Nicks and the cheating Mike and Alice offer some stumbling blocks to rooting for anyone to survive the night. We also get Ben Schwartz as Alice's friend responsible for the time travel machine, and Stephen Root and Dolph Lundgren as different hired killers.
I'll give Grabinski credit for the oddball nature of the film and putting an unexpected sci-fi element into a story we don't often see it used. However, the rest of the film lacks that originality. While I think slightly more of the film works than doesn't, I'd chalk Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice up to as an interesting curiosity more than anything else.
- Title: Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice
- IMDb: link
