First off, this audio description track produced by Deluxe is written very well. It has a lot of ground to cover, as nonsensical throwback traverses multiple genres and ideas, trying to create a film casserole from things it finds in the pantry. Explaining this film is utterly bizarre, and perhaps a slight lean in the spoiler section, but sometimes, we must tread where others fear, so we can make sense of things that do not.

Nick (Vince Vaughn) is a heavy working for Sosa (Keith David). Sosa has found out that there was a rat that caused his son Jimmy Boy (Jimmy Tatro) to be put in jail for a few years, and he wants that rat executed. Cut to the future, and Nick is regretting life choices, as his marriage to Alice (Eiza Gonzalez) is still floundering, and she’s pregnant with another man’s baby. that man, Mike (James Marsden), is the guy Nick killed, putting him up as a patsy over the real rat so he could get rid of Mike, who was sleeping with his wife, who Nick later realizes was already in a dead marriage. For many in this situation, we would just deal with our guilt, and move on. Luckily, Nick has kind of been funding a time travel project, and he uses the machine to go back in time. Oddly, he chooses the day Mike dies, not an earlier day, or even a different time where he could have fixed his relationship with his wife, but who cares, right? Things go bang bang,and that’s all anyone cares about.

Nick returns to help Mike stay alive, who is very confused, so confused he seems to not understand how chloroform works despite being a heavy himself. Since Nick chose this day, he’ll have to fight off not just the past version of himself, who he cannot kill because future Nick ceases to exist if he dies in the past, but also a cannibal contract killer (Dolph Lundgren), hired by Sosa to finish the job. Eventually, more assassins get involved and the film loses its focus, genre, and becomes a weird stylish hodgepodge, like if Shane Black directed a Quentin Tarantino script that was some early work of his he sold off for a quick buck.

I didn’t really like any of the leads. Vaughn feels lethargic, like the energy he used to have is gone. Even Bad Monkey (his TV series) is more energetic. Marsden is miscast. I kept picturing Jeremy Alyn White in the role, since the film doesn’t do anything Marsden does well. Gonzalez lacks the screentime to be a true third lead, and has no chemistry with either Vaughn or Marsden. Another film I was reminded of was 2 Days In The Valley, which didn’t really work back in the 90’s, but has some style to it, just not enough for people to still talk about it, or for it to have made money back in the day.

What does work is Keith David, who can turn any asinine bit of dialogue into pure gold. There’s some running gag involving Gilmore Girls that would not work if it wasn’t anchored by David’s reactions. As a close runner up, Jimmy Tatro is great in his role, and Stephen Root is amazing in yet another role I would have assumed he’d be wrong for based on trying to find his stapler over 25 years ago.

Since we already did a quirky time travel film this year, it is really hard to not compare this to Good Luck, Have Fun, and Don’t die, which passes this on nearly every level. A better use of time travel, a more energetic lead, and side characters with personalities. One film I’ve already seen twice, the other I’d prefer to not have to watch again.

But it does have one of the best audio description tracks I’ve heard this year so far.

Stumbling through time and genre, Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice is half as fun as it wants to be, often trading snarky gags for a richer story with better characters.

Rotten: 4.4/10