Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice: Definitely unique

Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice (2026) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five); rated R, for drug use, frequent profanity and strong, bloody violence

Available via: Hulu

By Derrick Bang

File this one under Violent Guilty Pleasure.

 

That said, writer/director BenDavid Grabinski’s darkly comic crime thriller gets considerable mileage from star Vince Vaughn’s deadpan delivery of numerous quite funny lines. The dialogue also gets additional punch from the story’s wildly fanciful premise.

 

Nick (Vince Vaughn, foreground) contemplates his next move, while his companions
— from left, Alice (Eiza González), Mike (James Marsden) and Future Nick (Vaughn) —
try to decide what to do with him.

The result is an improbable love child between “Pulp Fiction” and “Back to the Future.”

Grabinski sets this saga during a single, body-strewn evening within The Organization, a contemporary criminal empire headed by no-nonsense Sosa (Keith David). As befits this genre, his gang members are known by descriptive names such as Roid Rage Ryan, Quick Draw Mike and Dumbass Tony.

 

Nick (Vaughn) and Mike (James Marsden), longtime buddies, have done Sosa’s dirty work for years.

 

Everybody has gathered in a swanky hotel to celebrate the return of Sosa’s beloved son, Jimmy Boy (Jimmy Tatro), just released from a six-year prison stretch. The festivities promise to stretch long through the night: beginning with a party that’ll be followed by an after-party, then an after-after-party, and finally an after-after-after-party. (Each becomes a titled chapter in this increasingly manic narrative.)

 

First, though, a prologue focuses on genius inventor Symon (Ben Schwartz), as he dashes between banks of computers, controls and mad-scientist displays, while bopping to Billy Joel’s “Why Should I Worry?”

 

Alas, Symon should have worried. He doesn’t last long, after an encounter with Nick.

 

At the party, Sosa has learned that Jimmy was set up, all those years ago, by a rat among their numbers: Mike. Sosa orders Nick to snatch Mike and hand him over to a stone-cold contract assassin known as The Barron, who has a reputation for (ahem) eating his victims after killing them.

 

Nick heads to room 801, where he knows Mike can be found. Nick cajoles him into an assignment, warning that they’re on a “tight schedule.” Mike briefly balks; he has had enough of this life of crime, and wants out. Just this one last thing, Nick insists.

 

They drive to a lovely home in a quiet neighborhood, where Nick hands Mike a rag and a bottle of chloroform, with which to subdue the guy inside.

 

Don’t hesitate, Nick emphasizes. Just do it.

 

Mike duly knocks on the door ... and is stunned when Nick opens it.

 

(By this point, sharp-eyed viewers will have noticed that Nick’s wardrobe keeps changing, back and forth.)

 

So ... what the heck?

 

Renfield: It'll take a bite outta you!

Renfield (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for appallingly bloody violence, gore, relentless profanity and brief drug use

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.14.23

“Tasteless” isn’t nearly strong enough to describe this deranged little flick.

 

Deplorably, gratuitously tasteless comes closer. 

 

But — forgive me — it’s also hilarious. And quite entertaining.

 

Every time Renfield (Nicholas Hoult, right) tries to show a bit of independence, his
master, Dracula (Nicolas Cage), reminds him — quite painfully — that his fate has
been sealed for a long, long time.

Nicolas Cage has again revived his moribund career, this time by making the extremely risky decision to lampoon himself: a choice that merely accelerated the decline of lesser film stars. But Cage actually has a talent for self-ridicule, as demonstrated by last year’s unexpectedly droll The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.

And, let’s face it: Who better to sink his baroquely overacting teeth into a modern-day incarnation of Count Dracula?

 

Director Chris McKay, teamed here with writers Ryan Ridley and Robert Kirkman — the latter primarily responsible for the Walking Dead franchise — have orchestrated a cheeky, relentlessly profane and gory take on everybody’s favorite vampire.

 

That said, the infamous Count isn’t really the focus of this tale. That honor belongs to the title character: Dracula’s loyal lackey and aide-de-camp, better known as a “Familiar,” and played to British stiff-upper-lip perfection by Nicholas Hoult.

 

And ya gotta love the premise: Robert Montague Renfield is introduced as a member of a support group for victims of abusive partners, friends and work associates.

 

His presence is twofold. Ostensibly, but without going into detail, he admits to being hyper-controlled by an impressively “toxic boss” (as glaring an understatement as one could imagine). But he’s also on the prowl for fresh victims for ol’ Drac, reasoning that the best way to prevent human monsters from abusing their prey, is to, ah, “introduce” them to his own monster.

 

Since such two-legged blood bags rarely come to Dracula’s lair of their own accord, Renfield is able to, ah, “persuade” them via his own impressively agile and hyper-strong talents, courtesy of just a “touch” of Drac’s powers, which the count bestowed eons ago.

 

These talents kick into gear whenever Renfield eats a bug. (Bram Stolker’s Renfield notoriously ate flies and death’s-head moths. But wasn’t granted super-powers.)

 

Unfortunately, this particularly section of New Orleans — where Dracula and Renfield have set up headquarters in the basement of a long-abandoned hospital — is in thrall to a drug-running crime family run by the ruthless Bellafrancesca Lobo (Shohreh Aghdashloo) and her feckless son, Teddy (Ben Schwartz). When Renfield’s newest, um, “acquisitions” happen to be in the Lobo syndicate’s cross-hairs, all hell breaks loose.

Flora & Ulysses: Doesn't quite fly

Flore & Ulysses (2021) • View trailer

Three stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason

By Derrick Bang

Although director Lena Khan’s adaptation of Kate DiCamillo’s Newbery Award-winning children’s novel occasionally retains its message and engagingly snarky tone, the film — available via Disney+ — too frequently succumbs to the property-destroying slapstick that characterized far too many insufferable Disney comedies in the late 1960s and ’70s.

 

Having discovered that her new pet squirrel has some rather unusual talents, Flora
(Matilda Lawler) is faced with a problem: What does one do with a critter that can fly,
and possesses super-strength?

I suspect the book’s fans will not be pleased.

 

Brad Copeland’s screenplay takes serious liberties with DiCamillo’s book, particularly with respect to how the young heroine’s mother is portrayed. She has been softened considerably here, and made more amiably flustered and vulnerable: characteristics at which co-star Alyson Hannigan is quite adept.

 

This, in turn, demands an entirely re-written third act dominated by a new comic-relief villain: a juvenile artistic decision which suggests that Khan and Copeland simply didn’t understand their source material. More’s the pity.

 

We meet young Flora Belle Buckman (Matilda Lawler) at low ebb: deeply concerned because her parents — George (Ben Schwartz) and Phyllis (Hannigan) — have separated. He’s a frustrated comic book artist depressed by never having been able to sell any of his creations; she’s a successful romance novelist who fails to realize that her current case of writer’s block stems from the absence of her soul mate.

 

Flora, adept at adapting, has forsaken hope for suspicion and pragmatic sarcasm: She’s a self-proclaimed cynic, and proud of it. Her imagination is shaped by the do-gooding heroes she adores in comic books, while recognizing that there are no heroes — no magic, no miracles — in the real world. Her personal philosophy is shaped by the book Terrible Things Can Happen to You!

 

(Let it be said, her small town has the world’s coolest comic book shop.)

 

On an otherwise ordinary day, a somewhat ditzy neighbor’s Ulysses Super-Suction, Multi-Terrain 2000X vacuum cleaner bursts from the house, into the yard and — to Flora’s horror — sucks up an unsuspecting squirrel. Not one to shirk from an opportunity for personal heroism, Flora rescues the little critter, reviving it from suffocation by … well, the way one normally helps those who aren’t breathing.

 

The grateful squirrel refuses to leave Flora’s side, becoming a clandestine pet … and not just any pet. As the next few days pass, Ulysses — as Flora has named him — demonstrates impressive strength, along with the ability of actual flight. Even more amazing, he clearly understands what Flora says, and can “respond” with brief sentences composed while bouncing on the keys of Phyllis’ ancient manual typewriter.

 

“Holy Bagumba!” the girl exclaims.