‘Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice’ Review: A Smart, Chaotic Throwback That Finds Heart in Time Travel Crime

Exactly thirty years ago, Vince Vaughn broke out with Swingers, Doug Liman’s scrappy indie written by a then-unknown Jon Favreau. That film didn’t just capture a moment—it practically defined it. It belonged to a wave of hip, talky, semi-criminal comedies shaped in the wake of Quentin Tarantino’s early work: pop culture-obsessed, dialogue-driven, male-heavy stories that blended genres into something loose, ironic, and unmistakably ‘90s. That strain of indie cinema fed on exactly that kind of energy.

Three decades later, it’s hard to imagine squeezing new life out of that subgenre. And yet, somewhat improbably, Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice suggests there’s still a pulse there. This black comedy with noir overtones—also part action movie, part sci-fi, part crime drama—doesn’t go the easy route of retro homage. Instead, it resurrects the structure and tone of that era as if no time had passed at all. Writer-director BenDavid Grabinski loads his second feature with all the expected ingredients: gangsters, love triangles, rapid-fire banter, pop references, absurd action beats, even time travel. On paper, it sounds like a mess. In practice, it mostly works—and often works very well.

The film opens with Symon (Ben Schwartz), tinkering with some kind of tech project while belting out a Billy Joel song—just the first of many references the movie will drop. Moments later, an explosion interrupts the groove, a man emerges from a machine, and everything spirals from there. Soon we’re in the middle of a gangster gathering led by Sosa (Keith David), celebrating his son Jimmy Boy’s (Jimmy Tatro) release from prison. It’s here that the central trio gets tangled in a personal mess that pulls everyone else in.

James Marsden plays “Quick Draw” Mike, a hitman thinking about getting out. Vaughn’s Nick is Sosa’s right-hand man, married to Alice (Eiza González), with whom he shares a strained relationship—complicated further by her secret affair with Mike, who also happens to be Nick’s close friend. When Nick asks Mike to help with a job—taking someone out—Mike resists, unwilling to keep doing this kind of work. Eventually, he agrees to a compromise: he’ll just knock the guy out. The twist? The target turns out to be… Mike. Or rather, someone who looks exactly like him.

Things get more complicated from there, and deliberately so. This is, after all, a time travel story. After a chaotic failed hit, Nick reveals the truth: he’s a future version of himself, sent back using Symon’s machine to prevent Mike’s imminent murder. Sosa believes Mike is the informant who put his son in jail and has already ordered a hit. In one timeline, Mike dies—badly. Now Nick is trying to rewrite that outcome. But that’s only the beginning of a spiraling narrative including a present-day Nick who has no idea what’s happening or why someone who looks exactly like him is trying to sideline him.

Yes, the plot is convoluted. But Grabinski’s script keeps it mostly coherent, and more importantly, it grounds the chaos in something unexpectedly emotional. What separates Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice from other self-consciously “cool” crime comedies is the weight it gives to its central conflict. The time travel hook isn’t just a gimmick—it’s a mechanism for regret, for second chances, for confronting past mistakes. Nick isn’t just trying to save Mike; he’s trying to fix himself.

As long as the film stays anchored in that emotional throughline, everything else—the eccentric characters, the over-the-top action, even a random appearance by Dolph Lundgren—feels purposeful rather than indulgent. It does flirt with excess, especially toward the end, when it leans a bit too hard into its own quirks and loses some of its dramatic footing. There’s also an overreliance on repetitive action beats and an occasionally overwhelming soundtrack.

Still, there’s a genuine heartbeat underneath all the stylistic clutter. The future version of Nick understands what his past self got wrong, and that awareness gives the film moments of real poignancy—something rare in stories that usually operate with a constant wink to the audience. A key scene set to a song by Oasis is a perfect example: what could have been a cheeky reference instead lands as something surprisingly moving.

In the end, Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice is clever, fast, and often very funny, with well-staged action and sharp dialogue. But without that emotional core, it would risk feeling like little more than a hipster exercise in genre revival. What elevates it is the human element—the performances, the sense of regret, the desire to make things right. That’s what turns all the cleverness into something that actually resonates.