When your script is in doubt, add a time-travel plot line. That’s what it feels like writer/director BenDavid Grabinski (Happily) deduced could save his decidedly average crime comedy Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice about two gangsters (Vince Vaughn and James Marsden) and the woman they love (Eiza Gonzalez), all of whom are trying to survive a night in which every bad guy in town is out to kill them. Admittedly, I was not expecting a time machine to play a role in this story, but there it is, and something about it gives this fairly routine film a much-needed kick in the pants.
Vaughn plays Nick, who can’t stand his wife Alice (Gonzalez). He cheats on her regularly when he isn’t playing the button man for his boss, the crime lord Sosa (Keith David), and his son Jimmy Boy (Jimmy Tatro), who is just getting out of jail. Also on Sosa’s payroll is Quick Draw Mike (Marsden), a crack assassin who is on the verge of giving up the lifestyle in order to run away with his best friend Nick’s wife, with whom he’s recently begun having an affair. But before that can happen, Mike is framed for ratting out Jimmy Boy years earlier for the crime that got him tossed in jail originally. During Jimmy Boy’s release party, Nick grabs Mike for a secret last-minute job, which turns out to be to kidnap another version of Nick. So what the heck is going on here?
In a completely unrelated plot thread, Alice has arranged a loan for her inventor friend Symon (Ben Schwartz), who, we find out, was using it to build a time machine. Somehow Nick from several months in the future was feeling bad about framing his buddy Mike, so he goes back in time to stop Mike from getting killed by a terrifying assassin/cannibal hired by Sosa. But the only way to stop the assassin is to use Mike as bait to lure him in, and the only way to make that work is for Future Nick to convince Present Nick to forget the affair and being kidnapped, and go along with the plan. Yes, the entire plan is preposterous, and it culminates is a blazing gun battle at a house party (technically, an after-after-after party for Jimmy Boy), which is exactly how you’d expect a movie like this to end.
As dumb as the junk science of Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice gets, having these ridiculously likable actors steering the ship genuinely helps get you through the silliness. In addition to double the Vaughn, Marsden, and Gonzalez, there are strong supporting performances by Emily Hampshire as a crooked cop working for Nick, Stephen Root in a role I won’t disclose here, and various other comic actors coming in when the film needs a few laughs. It all adds up to a movie in desperate need of being elevated, and its actors nailing the assignment.
I don’t think Grabinski has the first clue about how the criminal underground works, but that’s fine because Vaughn probably does, and he gives his two Nick characters enough smarts and skill to carry the load. Not to mention Marsden and Gonzalez being two of the most attractive people on the planet; that meets a different assignment blazingly well. I’m not coming anywhere close to saying this movie is good, but in terms of entertainment value, you could do so much worse this weekend.
The film is now streaming exclusively on Hulu.
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