MIKE & NICK & NICK & ALICE. Setting aside his questionable politics for the moment (which may be an understandably impossible task for much of the potential audience), Vince Vaughn remains one of the old-school Hollywood stars who seems to get the brief. And he’s one for whom, despite my own reservations, I continue to show up. Being a whiteboy of certain proclivities, I fell for his act in Swingers (1996) just as hard (but for hopefully more ironic reasons) as everybody who ran out and bought bowling shirts; I never referred to anybody as “baby.” With his timing, verbosity and seemingly self-aware anti-leading-man charisma, he seemed made and ready for a certain type of stardom, an analog for the cool guy we all knew who wasn’t actually all that cool, but who could still command a room.
Going on to make Clay Pigeons (1998), Psycho (1998, an experiment that merits its own spirited discussion) and The Cell (2000) — setting aside the Jurassic Park sequel, which I still haven’t seen — he demonstrated a willingness to play with persona, to work against his own appeal and to keep a foot both in big-budget mainstream-ery and the independent world that made him. The intervening quarter century saw him make as many bad movies as good ones, occasionally straying far enough from his comedic bona fides to lose the interest of even ardent fans like me. But he’s stayed in the game and continued to select projects that interest him as a fan of the movies. (I will again posit that his season of True Detective might be more interesting than the first). He remains an instantly recognizable and investment-returning presence in modern entertainment, an actor (and writer, and producer) who can generally be counted on to deliver on our expectation of rat-a-tat delivery and precisely contained chaos.
Which is why, on a weekend of limited theatrical enticements (although I hear Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is a banger), a digital poster for Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice drew my eye, even not noticing, in my inattention, that it features two Vaughns. While part of my brain still (still!) cannot help but look on streaming-only releases as “less than,” I’ve seen enough to know that some of the stuff I really want to see is hiding there, in plain sight. It requires an active effort, despite my repeated, pleasant surprise and frequent defense of the new, imperfect distribution model, but sometimes (certainly not always) that effort is rewarded.
I waded with no foreknowledge and, perhaps most importantly, with expectations toward the low end. What I encountered — a clever, quasi-nostalgic mashup of breakup comedy, mob revenge potboiler and science fiction — satisfied on a fundamental, almost primal level.
For the occasion of his son Jimmy Boy’s (Jimmy Tatro) release from prison, crime-boss Sosa (Keith David) has organized a number of blow-out parties, against which we witness the ongoing dissolution of Nick (Vaughn) and Alice’s (Eiza Gonzalez) marriage. Nick, a respected captain in Sosa’s army, also has a busy night ahead of him, one that will require the assistance of Mike (James Marsden), a hired gun with a target on his back and one foot out the door. Crazy inventor Symon (Ben Schwartz) will be a factor, as will a maniac contract killer and, well, the second Vaughn. But I’d rather not give the whole thing away.
Written and directed by BenDavid Grabinski (Happily, 2021), Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice takes place all in one night, with Jimmy Boy’s numerous fetes serving as the backdrop for a number of action set pieces and, in a comic mode, an examination of remorse, affection and the undoing of prior misdeeds. The look and tone of the piece recall the sights and sounds of 1990s Hollywood cinema, with nods mostly to the silly pulpiness in which we reveled. Thanks to an unbelievable supporting cast, it delivers enough jokes-per-minute to allow us to forgive some of its less spectacular moments of spectacle. In fairness, the movie rarely reaches for a level of action choreography it cannot achieve, and those moments are past and repaired quickly enough not to harm the greater effect.
Vaughn, as he did so memorably in the under-praised Freaky (2020), does what he has always done so well: Playing with and against type, he deflates any notion of actorly self-reverence while continuing to dole out the acerbic asides that created his brand.
It’s no surprise that a genre mash-up studded with gunplay and one-liners would yield whatever neurochemical hit for which I so often jones, but it’s still a fun thing to find in an unexpected place. R. 147M. HULU, DISNEY.
John J. Bennett (he/him) is a movie nerd who loves a good car chase.
NOW PLAYING
BEAST. A former MMA fighter (Daniel MacPherson) gets back in the ring and back with his old coach (Russell Crowe) to save his brother (Mojean Aria). R. 113M. BROADWAY.
THE DRAMA. A revelation from the past throws an engaged couple’s (Zendaya, Robert Pattison) relationship into chaos. R. 106M. BROADWAY, MINOR.
FACES OF DEATH. A content moderator (Barbie Ferreira) gets sucked into a rabbit hole of online murder based on the gross cult movie from the 1980s. R. 98M. BROADWAY.
A GREAT AWAKENING. Historical drama about the friendship between a reverend and that saucy minx Benjamin Franklin. PG13. 129M. BROADWAY.
HOPPERS. Animated adventure about a girl (Piper Cuda) who transfers her consciousness into a beaver and radicalizes forest animals. PG. 105M. BROADWAY.
HUNTING MATTHEW NICHOLS. Thriller about a documentary filmmaker (Miranda MacDougal) searching for her lost brother who finds evidence of his survival. R. 89M. BROADWAY.
PROJECT HAIL MARY. Ryan Gosling stars as a science teacher turned reluctant astronaut on a mission to save the planet. PG13. 156M. BROADWAY, MINOR.
SUPER MARIO BROS. GALAXY MOVIE. Animated video game adventure sequel with Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy and Jack Black. PG. 98M. BROADWAY (3D), MINOR.
UNDERTONE. Freaky audio throws a paranormal podcaster into a full-on haunting. Starring Nina Kiri. R. 93M. BROADWAY.
YOU, ME & TUSCANY. Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Paige star in a rom-com with Italian food, scenery and light scamming. PG13. 104M. BROADWAY.
For showtimes, visit catheaters.com and minortheatre.com.
This article appears in Taco Week 2026.