Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice

• Written and Directed by BenDavid Grabinski
• March 14, 2026 (SXSW) / March 27, 2026 (Disney+ and Hulu)

A killer tries to fix a past regret after he stumbles on a time machine.

When I watched this, I just wanted something fun. Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice looked like it was going to fit that. A time travel movie with gangsters seemed to me to be a weird-yet-entertaining mix. Well, maybe not gangsters. Not sure what the criminal enterprise is but our main group are all killers so maybe there is that.

Featuring two Vince Vaughns, James Marsden, Eiza González, and Keith David, it is a time travel action movie carried by humor in a character driven story. Vaughn does his usual rapid patter dialogue and charming a-hole bit that has often been his bread and butter. It is like he always has a con going on. Vince Vaughn is certainly no action star but much like Bob Odenkirk he can handle it surprisingly well. Keith David in the part of Sosa, with his deep resonating voice, is a great villain.

This doesn’t take itself too seriously. There are enough rules to create a logic, but it never gets too weighed down to keep things managing a mix of fun and serious. For the fun we get steady jokes and stylized action scenes along with humorous (yet not annoyingly so) characters that still work in the world created.

There is a core with feeling which works because despite our mains being killers and criminals, all the characters are likeable. Nick (Vince Vaughn), despite cheating himself, decided to frame his friend Mike (James Marsden) as a rat when he found out Mike was sleeping with his wife Alice (Eiza González) who was a bit afraid of Nick for clearly justifiable reasons. Future Nick when going to collect a debt stumbles on a time machine built by Symon (Ben Schwartz) with a ‘Y’.

There are several running gag.. One involves Gilmore Girls. Apparently everybody is very into that show. It’s a little weird but funny and is used as a way to bond the characters trying to save Mike even when they have a reason not to and provide a little bit of humor. A deceased character Jackie Napalm keeps getting called “a real one” every time he is mentioned. There is Dumbass Tony (Arturo Castro) planting an idea in the recently released Jimmy Boy’s (Jimmy Tatro), Sosa’s adopted son, head that plays through the story.

Humor is also derived from unexpected moments or situations that keep coming. Stuff that should stop the movie like Present Nick wanting SF candy and the clerk not believe it exists are great. Interactions between the dense Jimmy Boy and Sosa who loves him with lines like “I don’t know cartoons, you don’t know big words! Who cares?” work.

Given this is a time travel movie and we learn Alice is pregnant I kind of expected Jimmy Boy, once we learn his backstory, to be revealed as the child of Mike and Alice. Jimmy Boy is the very white boy who is Sosa’s adopted son found in an alley. He is comedically stupid but not so stupid that you wonder how he exists. Just a little dense as are many of the characters in this criminal organization.

The movie begins at a party celebrating Jimmy Boy’s release and now that I have a moment to think I have a question: what was he in prison for? He is closer to an uninvolved prince benefitting from daddy than an active criminal. What sent him up the river? And how did it not hurt his dad? It kind of bugs me.

This is a mix of popcorn movie requiring little thought and something with a little depth. There is romance and forgiveness mixed with laughs. It can be a bit cliché but uses those clichés as sources of humor. And it never comes off as derivative.

Giving everyone nicknames acted as a shortcut for characterization allowing a greater focus on action. The casting was on point with the cameo by Dolph Lundgren as the cannibalistic killer known as “The Barron” being among my favorite.

With the use of some flashbacks, it fleshes out the story not only of Future Nicks regret but of the birth of the romance between Mike and Alice. Future Nick says he and things with a that with crooked cop Sam (Emily Hampshire) are going quite well and you can believe it. Stranger still none of these people come off as terrible. They are all kind of likable which helps to sell the overall story.

Writer/director BenDavid Grabinski gets you to the point of believing a happy ending for all was in the cards and that is almost essentially what was given the last-minute reveal which should have come sooner. What happened with Future Nick was expected but not in the way it happened.

Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice had the right mix of fun and silly and serious and action to put it just a little above other streaming offerings.