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Today marks the premiere of Vince Vaughn’s latest film, Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, now available for streaming on Netflix. This Hulu feature explores an unusual cinematic concept: what happens when you have not one, but two Vince Vaughns in a single movie?
Crafted by writer-director BenDavid Grabinski and produced by Andrew Lazar, the film stars Vaughn in dual roles as Nick, alongside James Marsden who plays Mike. Together, they portray criminals tied to a mob boss. The plot centers on their quest to clear Mike’s name, following false accusations that he betrayed the mob, resulting in the mob boss’s son, played by the captivating Jimmy Tatro, landing in prison. The twist? The Nick attempting to rescue Mike is from the future, while his present-day counterpart threatens to derail their efforts.
Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice also features performances by Eiza González and Keith David in this action-packed, time-travel comedy. As with most films involving time travel, the narrative can become intricate. But fear not—Decider offers a detailed breakdown of the plot and a comprehensive explanation of the movie’s ending.
Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice movie plot summary:
The film kicks off with an inventor named Symon, portrayed by Ben Schwartz, engrossed in his work on a mysterious machine while singing a tune from Oliver & Company. Suddenly, an explosion occurs, revealing a figure within the machine. As Symon reaches for his gun to confront the intruder, he is outpaced and ultimately shot. His lab, along with the machine, is engulfed in flames.
The subsequent scene introduces Sosa, a mob boss played by Keith David, who is hosting a grand celebration in honor of his son Jimmy Boy’s release from prison after a six-year sentence. Amid the revelry, Sosa issues a stern warning: he is aware that a betrayer lurks among them, responsible for his son’s incarceration, and vows retribution. Nonetheless, the festivities continue.
Attending the party are friends and co-workers Nick (Vince Vaughn) and Mike (James Marsden), two of Sosa’s mobster employees. We learn that Nick has a strained relationship with his wife, Alice (Eiza González), and that she is having a secret affair with Mike. While waiting for Alice to meet him in his hotel room, Mike gets a visit from Nick. He assumes Nick found out about the affair, and is going to kill him. Instead, Nick asks for Mike’s help on a job. Even though Mike is trying to get out of the game, he reluctantly agrees.
The job, it turns out, is much weirder than Mike expected. Nick drives Mike to his own house, and instructs him to knock out whoever answers the door, no matter who it is. In fact the person who answers the door is… Nick. Mike is confused, but tries to do as instructed. Unfortunately, he doesn’t do a good enough job, and the other Nick gets away.
Nick—Future Nick—explains that he is from the future, and he’s here to save Mike’s life. Their boss, Sosa, received some bad intel and believes Mike is the rat. Sosa has hired a cannibal-assassin named the Baron to take Mike out slowly and painfully. (He’s going to eat him alive!) Future Nick knows Mike is innocent, which is why he’s come from six months in the future to prevent Mike from dying on this date. Unfortunately, Future Nick only gets one chance, because he “accidentally” killed the guy that invented the time machine (Symon) and also destroyed the machine itself.
As it turns out Symon was a friend of Alice’s, and Nick was bankrolling his time machine project. When Symon was behind on payments, Future Nick paid him a visit, and discovered the time machine. Future Nick decided to use it to go back in time to a date he thinks about a lot: The day Mike was killed. Unfortunately, while using the time machine sent him to the correct date, it also blew up the machine. And when Future Nick saw Symon had a gun on him, he shot him, and killed him, by accident.
Now, Future Nick and Mike need to track down Present Nick, so that he doesn’t mess up Future Nick’s plan to save Mike. After some shenanigans, and picking up Alice along they way, they do manage to kidnap Present Nick. Present Nick reveals he just found out that Mike and Alice are having an affair, and he is the one who framed Mike as the rat, as an act of revenge. Future Nick regrets doing this, and is trying to correct his mistake.
Present Nick reluctantly agrees to follow the plan, and lie low with Future Nick in their secret bachelor pad. The plan? Future Nick will call Sosa and let him know he’s captured Mike. Sosa will send the Baron to kill Mike, and then Future Nick will take out the Baron with a sniper shot.
While waiting, it comes out that Alice is pregnant with Mike’s child, which is why Future Nick wants to keep him alive. He regrets killing that unborn baby’s father, and doesn’t want Alice to be a single mother. We also learn the rules of time travel in this universe, after Alice stabs Present Nick, and Future Nick immediately gets a scar from it. That means, if Present Nick dies, Future Nick will cease to exist.
But when the Baron (Stephen Root) shows up, Present Nick immediately sells out Mike and tells the Baron the plan. The Baron, in response, shoots and kills Mike on the spot. Present Nick is shocked by this, and immediately regrets what he’s done. Lucky for Present Nick, this was all a ruse. That’s not the real Baron, and Mike isn’t really dead. The whole thing was staged because Future Nick knew that until Present Nick actually made the mistake of getting Mike killed, he would never agree that it was a mistake in the first place. Present Nick is not happy about being tricked, but agrees to help Mike, for real this time.
After they take out the real Baron and his cronies, Mike suggests figuring out who the real rat is, but Nick informs that the real rat—a character mentioned a few times in passing, but never shown on screen, Jackie Napalm—is dead. So the new-new plan? Get everyone that wants Mike dead under one roof and just… murder them. Lucky for them, all of these people will be at the after-after-after party for Jimmy Boy’s release-from-prison celebration.
Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice movie ending explained:
Mike, Present Nick, and Future Nick crash the after-after-after party and kill a lot of people, as per the plan. A face off with Jimmy Boy himself ends with Jimmy Boy running through a glass window, out onto the driveway. Mike and the Nicks rush outside, where they find Sosa, holding a gun to Alice’s head. Ladies, this is what we have got to stop waiting in the car while we let our mobster husband and mobster boyfriend have all the fun, am I right?
Jimmy Boy succumbs to his injuries from jumping through glass window. A grief-stricken Sosa takes aim at Mike, but Present Nick saves him by jumping in front of the bullet. Alice takes out Sosa (feminism, after all!), and then she, Mike, and Future Nick rush the gravely injured Present Nick to the hospital. But they don’t make it in time.
As they pull up to the hospital, Present Nick slumps over, and Future Nick simply vanishes. We know, based on the rules of the time travel in this universe, that means that Present Nick died for good.
…But wait! There’s a deus ex machina!
Alice reveals that, this whole time, there has been another time machine. Apparently, Symon made two!
In the final sequence of the film, Mike and Alice uncover the time machine from a storage unit. “Time for round two,” Mike says. He steps into the time machine, and with that, the movie ends.
So what happens next? Well the movie leaves it up to your imagination, but the implication is that Mike and Alice go back in time and save Nick. The sequel could be called Mike & Mike & Nick & Alice & Alice.