Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice - A Pretty Hilarious Action Comedy Movie with a Touch of Sci-Fi

I noticed this movie was made available in Disney+ two nights ago and was immediately interested. But as it was already rather late, I decided to watch it following day. Without further ado, here's more on the film.

Brief Story Line

On the night when crime boss Sosa (Keith David - Mufasa: The Lion King, Horizon Line etc) was celebrating his son Jimmy Boy (Jimmy Tatro - Stuber, You're Cordially Invited etc) being released from prison, one of the guests, loan shark Nick (Vince Vaughn - Bad Monkey  TV series, Wedding Crashers etc) was shown to be having strained relationship with his wife Alice (Eisa González - Ash, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare etc). Meanwhile Nick's trusted colleague Quick Draw Mike (James Marsden - Sonic the Hedgehog 3, X-men films etc) was planning to quit from criminal life but his plan was ruined when Nick suddenly turned up and requested his help to kidnap someone. Despite his reluctance, Mike decided to help Nick in what was supposed to be his final job, though he was shocked once he realized the person to be kidnapped. 

Things became out of hand when Sosa thought the person who betrayed Jimmy was Mike and assigned a cannibal assassin code named Barron to kill him. Now Nick & Mike had to find ways to save Mike's life together with Alice and an unexpected help.

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

To be honest, the reason why I was interested with this movie at first was the cast. When I saw it starred Vince Vaughn, I could immediately guess it would be something comedic. Add that with James Marsden and also Eisa González who recently appeared in many major movies, made it seemed to be a sure hit. But the one thing that raised my curiosity was the title and the poster which was clarified in less than half hour of the movie and made me liked it even more. It was explained by Vaughn in his usual serious tone but somehow made it sound hilarious.

Anyway as the film progressed, it turned out that besides the comedic moments, the film also had some serious scenes. However the most surprising part was the action. It was well executed and clearly shown the film maker put in great deal in those action sequence. And they were brutal & violent which likely explained the R rating. The movie itself has duration of 107 minutes which was sufficient to cover the whole story. During the closing credits, there were some quite funny scenes not shown in the film but not bloopers. So you could enjoy watching them till the film really finished.

Now I am not going to go into too much details of the plot but suffice to say, it was indeed fun. There was a small sci-fi element that was purposely told in a very simple manner that would not confuse us. The performance of Vince Vaughn was brilliant and his chemistry with James Marsden and Eisa González was a real joy to watch. In this case I must applaud the wonderful work of writer and director BenDavid Grabins (writer of Skiptrace and director of Happily) who made all this possible.

From what I read, this movie was well received by critics who praised it as remarkably fun. It did not have a wide release in the cinemas and premiered in the South by South West Film & TV Festival on March 17. So it took less than 2 weeks to have it released in Hulu & Disney+. Aside from the names I mentioned above, the movie has a large support cast that included Emily Hampshire (The Rig TV series, Fitting In etc) as the cop Sam, Arturo Castro (Tron: Ares, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story etc) and Lewis Tan (Wild Cat, Fistful of Vengeance etc) as Jimmy's friends Dumbass Tony and Roid Rage Ryan respectively, Ben Schwartz (Flora & Ulysses, The Afterparty TV series etc) as Symon and Stephen Root (Playdate, Heads of State etc) & Dolph Lundgren (Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom, Minions: The Rise of Gru etc) in cameo roles. 

Overall this was one entertaining movie that I enjoyed. It managed to combine good humor, well executed action and a little bit drama plus some sci-fi element. Even the ending was really good, although if people are being critical, that final scene even though looked good, might have a negative impact on the previous part. However, it could also be seen as a proper conclusion and still in line with the main plot. In the end, if you are looking for a good quality action comedy movie with the above traits, you can definitely give this a try on Disney+.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars