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?

 

Theater Camp: Concept, 8; laughs, 10

Theater Camp (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for occasional profanity and drug references

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.28.23

This is one of the most sarcastic — yet affectionate — films I’ve ever seen.

 

Also one of the funniest.

 

Whilte the young cast members stare in nervous astonishment, Amos (Ben Platt) and
Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon) interrupt a rehearsal to indulge in another of their
many artistic arguments.

Granted, theater people are an easy target, with all their quirks and ostentatiously sincere eccentricities. Co-directors Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman clearly know their way backstage, and their script — co-written with Noah Galvin — explores territory that’ll instantly be familiar to any parent whose adolescent child has been bitten by the stage bug (along with all the other adults who’ve politely endured community theater productions).

Gordon and Lieberman’s mockumentary was a smash hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and took home the coveted U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award.

 

So … let the curtain rise!

 

With summer approaching, AdirondACTS founder Joan (Amy Sedaris) and general manager Rita (Caroline Aaron) once again scout local school theater productions, in order to entice kids to attend — and their parents to help fund — their scrappy upstate New York theater camp. Alas, this undertaking proves calamitous; the strobe effects during a production of Bye, Bye Birdie send Joan into a shock coma.

 

(The fact that this crisis is milked for humor, gives a sense of how edgy the script will be.)

 

Responsibility for overseeing the summer’s activities therefore falls to Joan’s oblivious “crypto bro” son, Troy (Jimmy Tatro), a clueless failure-to-launch who probably didn’t graduate junior high school. His arrival coincides with busloads of eager young thespians, which horrifies Rita and the rest of the staff, notably drama instructors Amos (Ben Platt) and Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon). Their goal: to keep Troy the hell away from day-to-day activities.

 

Alas, Troy is so dense that he can’t take even sledge-hammer hints. His effort to introduce himself to the assembled children, on the first morning, totally fails to quell the eager chatter of reuniting friends and eager newcomers.

 

Then Amos grabs the microphone and croons “Oh, what a beautiful…”

 

…at which point, all the kids snap to attention and sing, in unison, “morning!”

 

Right then, the film becomes can’t-miss captivating.

Stuber: Stoo-pid

Stuber (2019) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for relentless violence and profanity, sexual candor, and fleeting nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.12.19

Good grief.

I haven’t seen this much contrived, gratuitous and pointless destruction of property since the inane Disney comedies of the 1960s, when a bear would “accidentally” stumble into somebody’s garage and wreak havoc with scores of spilled paint cans.

Stu (Kumail Nanjiani, right) objects strongly when Vic (Dave Bautista) insists on giving a
ride to a dog they've just rescued. Stu should be more tolerant; this pooch is far more
entertaining than most of the rest of the film.

The bear in this case is Dave Bautista’s Vic Manning, a rogue cop with serious anger issues, thanks to a violent, over-the-top prologue dominated by his protracted, dog-nuts fight with gleefully sadistic bad guy Oka Tedjo (Iko Uwais). Alas, the villain gets away, fueling Vic’s rage during six subsequent months of frustrating, futile investigations.

Director Michael Dowse’s Stuber is one of the most uneven action flicks ever unleashed by Hollywood: at times genuinely funny — mostly when Bautista’s hulking Vic trades verbal barbs with Kumail Nanjiani’s meek and mild Stu — and then atrociously violent and/or needlessly vulgar. 

Dowse doesn’t have the faintest idea what sort of movie he’s making, which is no surprise; Tripper Clancy’s clumsy excuse for a script doesn’t give anybody much to work with. Absent Bautista and Nanjiani’s inherent timing and camera presence, this flick would be a total bomb.

Which is a shame. Bautista and Nanjiani aside, Dowse’s lame effort also wastes the time and talent of solid co-stars Natalie Morales, Karen Gillan and Mira Sorvino. This is an abysmally stupid movie, and Clancy’s script is strictly from hunger.

The result is the sort of tasteless, mean-spirited mess that delights in introducing innocent civilians who hang around long enough to make an impression, before being needlessly snuffed.

On top of which, the publicity campaign is quite misleading. The lovably slobbering dog featured so prominently on the poster art has two fleeting scenes, and plays no part in the action.