“Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice,” a new release on Disney+, throws just about everything it can onto the screen — crime caper, romantic drama, buddy comedy, action spectacle and time-travel sci-fi — and dares the audience to keep up.
Directed by BenDavid Grabinski, the film feels like a mashup of early 2000s Vince Vaughn comedies and the grittier crime films he later gravitated toward, with a heavy dose of 1990s nostalgia layered on top. The result is energetic and occasionally entertaining, but often overwhelmed by its own ambition.
Vaughn plays Nick, a mid-level gangster working for crime boss Sousa, portrayed by Keith David. Nick’s personal life is unraveling: his marriage to Alice (Eiza González) is strained, and she is secretly involved with Mike (James Marsden), Nick’s partner in crime. The tension simmers beneath a deceptively casual setup — a party marking the release of Sousa’s son from prison — before the story veers into stranger territory.
What begins as a fairly standard crime story soon pivots into science fiction. A second version of Nick appears — one from six months in the future — attempting to undo the consequences of a night he regrets. The film’s central hook is this encounter between two versions of the same man, offering a chance to confront jealousy, bad decisions and missed opportunities.
It’s a compelling idea, but the movie treats its time-travel mechanics loosely, raising more questions than it answers. The sci-fi element functions more as a narrative device than a fully realized concept, and the film shows little interest in exploring its implications in depth.
Stylistically, “Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice” wears its influences openly. Long, meandering conversations echo Quentin Tarantino’s signature style, with characters drifting into pop culture debates and offbeat tangents. Some of these exchanges are amusing, while others feel self-indulgent, as if the film is more interested in sounding clever than moving the story forward.
The tone shifts constantly. One moment plays like a lighthearted buddy comedy, the next like a violent action film with exaggerated, over-the-top set pieces. Black-and-white flashbacks and needle-drop soundtrack moments — including songs that comment directly on the plot — add to the sense of a film juggling too many ideas at once.
There are flashes of what could have worked. Vaughn leans into both his comedic and hardened personas, and supporting characters, including Sousa’s eccentric son, bring moments of levity. But the film’s central emotional thread — a man confronting his own regrets — often gets lost amid the noise.
In the end, “Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice” is less a cohesive film than a collage of influences and genres. It is sometimes fun, occasionally clever, but ultimately feels like it is trying to be five different movies at once — and never quite becomes any of them.