Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice is a consistently surprising movie that arguably over-delivers on all of its promises. One of the most exciting ones it makes is the suggestion of a sequel, teed up by the excellent ending, which returns to the understated time travel gimmick in a knowingly contrived way to hint that we could be looking at another go-around. I’d be all for it, even if it’s probably intended as an ambiguous flourish instead of a serious pitch, since BenDavid Grabinski’s Hulu original is one of the most fun movies of the year.
Part of that fun is how everything comes together in the climax. It isn’t just the possibility of more, although that’s definitely nice, but the pitch-perfect payoff to the story’s themes and character dynamics – not to mention an extended action set-piece that could rival anything in most movies that exist solely to justify action scenes (like, say, the execrable Jason Statham vehicle, Shelter). Let’s break down how it all plays out.
One Time Only
Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice is based around a very light time travel gimmick. Organised crime capo Nick travels back to prevent his associate, Mike, from being killed and eaten by a notorious hired killer known as the Baron. Mike is on the hook because Nick framed him as a rat as revenge for Mike having an affair with Nick’s wife, Alice. The criminal kingpin, Sosa, thinks that Mike landed his son, Jimmy Boy, in jail.
Luckily, Nick had access to a time machine invented by a madcap inventor named Symon (with a Y, everyone is careful to say). This allows him to travel back in time six months and interact with his past self in order to save Nick. Most of the usual paradoxes inherent in temporally-inclined stories aren’t a problem here. The only major issue is that if Past Nick dies, Future Nick will cease to exist, an idea proved when Alice angrily stabs Past Nick in the leg, giving Future Nick a scar.
Problematically, though, when Nick first arrived in the past, he panicked Symon. In the subsequent confusion, Nick accidentally killed Symon and destroyed the lab, including the time machine, which means that there’s no possibility of Groundhog Day-style repeated efforts. This is the only chance that Nick has to save Mike.
Guilty Conscience
The underlying theme of Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice is guilt. In his anger, Nick sold out his friend for a woman whom he didn’t particularly care about, and when Mike was killed, Nick felt immense guilt. It also turns out that Alice is pregnant with Mike’s child, which in the original timeline she only learned during Mike’s funeral. This is the reason why Nick decides to travel back in time to assuage his guilt over what happened.
This idea is displayed especially well in a scene where the gang attempts to trick Sosa’s hired cannibal assassin, the Baron. Future Nick is ahead of the game here and knows that Past Nick will sell Mike out to the Baron, so Future Nick, Mike, and Alice set up a ruse to fake Mike’s death and prove a point to Past Nick that killing Mike will become his worst mistake. It has the intended effect and brings Past Nick properly onside.
The best expression of this idea, though, comes during the ending itself.
When Two Becomes None
During the great action set-piece at the end of the movie, Past and Future Nick team up, along with Mike, to take down Sosa and his crew to ensure that nobody else goes after Mike. The real rat, Jackie Napalm, is already dead, so there’s no way for Mike to clear his name. Wiping out the operation is the only way he can be free.
However, in a late stand-off, Sosa manages to hold Alice at gunpoint, while a badly injured Jimmy Boy, who is dying from wounds sustained from throwing himself through a window, arrives and takes a potshot at Mike. Past Nick dives in front of the bullet to save him, and ends up taking a bullet through the neck.
Despite a funny rendition of Oasis’s “Don’t Look Back in Anger”, Past Nick doesn’t make it, which means that Future Nick also disappears. The movie could leave things here, but Alice reveals that Symon had another version of the time machine hidden away in storage. So, instead, Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice ends with Mike going back in time to prevent Nick’s death.
