Gangsters and Time-Travel Make for a Potent Mix in ‘Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice’

Perhaps because of the nature of film—the ability to compress time through the edit; to expand time through speeding up the frames-per-second—it thrives as a medium for time-travel stories. And as we’re seeing in 2026, there are still plenty of interesting approaches to using time travel for your comedy. We saw it earlier this year with Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie and now we’re seeing it again with BenDavid Grabinski’s Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice. While time travel is not as much of the plot as it was in Nirvanna, it still brings a welcome twist to the other genre Grabinski uses, crime comedy. There aren’t a lot of films that meld gangsters and time travel (the only other one that comes to mind is Looper), but the conceit makes for a fun little movie about a man trying to undo a major regret, which means killing lots of his former colleagues along the way. Peppered with sharp jokes and lively performances, Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice shows it’s more than just a clever set-up.

Mike (James Marsden) is having an affair with Alice (Eia González), who’s married to Mike’s fellow hitman, Nick (Vince Vaughn). They’re both in the employ of crime boss Sosa (Keith David), who is celebrating the release of his son, Jimmy Boy (Jimmy Tatro), from prison. Before Mike and Alice can skip off to a dalliance in a hotel room, he’s pulled in for a job by Nick only to discover that the job…is also Nick. Using a time machine created by Alice’s friend Symon (Ben Schwartz), Nick has come from six months in the future to undo the damage of his choices and save Mike from Sosa and his goons. However, to do that, Nick will also have to contend with himself, literally and figuratively.

The biggest compliment I can pay the film is that Grabinski seems to be consciously drawing from the crime comedies of Shane Black like Lethal Weapon and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. There’s violence and danger, but there’s just as much time devoted to characters firing off witty banter against each other. While this sometimes grates against Future Nick stressing how they’re on a tight schedule only to then have characters go on comic riffs, it’s not really too much of a problem. There’s no ticking clock here, and there’s a shaggy demeanor to the whole film that lets the jokes flow easily. There’s an entire subplot about Jimmy Boy feeling sexually impotent after discussing his incarceration with henchman Dumbass Tony (Arturo Castro). There’s no real payoff to any of this, but you’re watching Tatro and Castro bounce off each other and they’re hilarious. 

Thankfully, this isn’t just “Banter: The Movie” as Vaughn brings a welcome sense of melancholy and regret to the Nicks. As he tells himself at one point, “You’re the kind of guy who can only understand a mistake once you make it,” and that makes for a strong emotional throughline that goes beyond “Two Vaughns for the Price of One.” Despite being a star for over a couple decades now, you can tell that Vaughn is still enjoying himself, embraces a new challenge, and has a game partner not only in his double, but with Marsden, who gets a welcome chance to shine here. This is a stacked cast that not only finds room for performers like David, Tatro, Castro, Schwartz, and Stephen Root, but understands that Marsden is a talent who always rises to the occasion.

It’s a little bit of a shame we don’t get more breezy films like this coming to theaters. Despite premiering at SXSW, Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice will go straight to Hulu, denied the possibility of playing in front of a crowd. And perhaps Disney/20^th Century Studios is correct in assuming that audiences aren’t going to pay $20 to see an original film that’s not driven by spectacle. But that only highlights the larger economic problems of ticket pricing and how streaming can obscure a film’s quality. I had a lot of fun watching Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, but who knows what kind of chance it has on streaming? We also don’t know its popularity since Hulu won’t release streaming numbers. This isn’t a game-changing movie, but it’s damned entertaining, and it’s doing Shane Black better than even the most recent Shane Black.

Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice arrives on Hulu on March 27^th.