“Nickels” Review: Rob Riggle Steps Into Real Dramatic Territory

Comedians going dramatic can go one of two ways. Either it feels like a stunt, or it reveals a side of the performer nobody knew was there. Nickels leans toward the second outcome, thanks mostly to Rob Riggle, who spends the entire film resisting the urge to fall back on the jokes he’s known for.

Directed by Spencer King and written by Tim Tuchrello, Nickels is inspired by a true story, and it tackles grief with more restraint than most films in this particular genre usually manage.

What’s It About

Riggle plays Tom Monroe, a successful entrepreneur who’s spent thirty years carrying the loss of his older brother, killed in a motorcycle accident when Tom was still a teenager. That grief eventually drove a permanent wedge between Tom and his sister, Deborah, played by Rebecca Gayheart.

Old wounds reopen when Tom’s neighbor, a teenager named Mitch Diller (Aaron Holliday), survives a serious motorcycle crash of his own. As Tom spends more time with Mitch during his recovery, he starts to believe there might be something deeper going on, a spiritual thread connecting Mitch to the brother he lost decades earlier. That belief starts putting real strain on his marriage to Liz (Bitsie Tulloch), his relationship with his daughter Harper (Odessa A’zion), and his standing with Mitch’s own parents, played by Tom Arnold and Vinessa Shaw.

The Nickels Review

What separates Nickels from a lot of faith-adjacent dramas is what it refuses to do. Tom never visits a priest. Nobody consults a reincarnation specialist. The film keeps its supernatural elements deliberately vague, choosing instead to let grief itself drive the story forward rather than any concrete spiritual explanation. That’s a smart choice, and it keeps the film from tipping into the overly tidy, sermon-like tone that sinks a lot of movies built around faith and loss.

Riggle is the biggest reason this works as well as it does. He plays Tom as a genuinely wounded, ordinary man rather than reaching for easy comic relief, and the choice pays off. It’s a performance built on quiet discomfort rather than big emotional outbursts, closer in spirit to his more dramatic work in 12 Strong than to his comedy background. His scenes with Tulloch carry a lived-in, believable marriage, and his scenes with young Holliday land even harder, especially as Tom starts projecting decades of unprocessed grief onto a teenager who has no idea what he represents to him.

Where the Film Comes Up Short

The trouble is everything happening around Riggle’s performance. The supporting characters never get the same depth. Odessa A’zion does what she can as Harper, but the character never quite convinces as a believable high schooler, which pulls focus during several family scenes. More significantly, the screenplay leaves several relationships underdeveloped, including Tom’s long estrangement from his sister and the growing unease between the two families as Tom’s obsession with Mitch deepens.

These are exactly the threads that could have given Nickels real emotional stakes, and the film only partially follows through on them. Some scenes land with genuine weight. Others feel like they needed another pass in the writers’ room before reaching their full potential.

What the Film Gets Right

Credit belongs to director Spencer King for keeping Nickels from becoming either an overly sentimental sermon or a mystery box demanding a tidy supernatural answer. The film is far more interested in what grief actually does to the people left behind than in resolving whether Tom’s belief about Mitch is literally true. That restraint is the smartest choice the film makes, even when the story surrounding it doesn’t always live up to it.

At its core, Nickels understands something real: the people lost stay woven into who the living become. That idea comes through clearly, even when the plot mechanics carrying it there feel unfinished.

Who This Is For

Viewers drawn to grounded, faith-adjacent dramas about grief and family will find real substance here, particularly in Riggle’s performance. It’s a good pick for anyone tired of the heavier-handed, message-first approach common in a lot of faith-based filmmaking, since this one trusts its emotional core rather than spelling everything out.

Just know going in that the supporting cast and some relationship threads don’t get the same care as the central father-figure dynamic. If tight, fully developed ensemble writing is a dealbreaker, this one may leave you wanting more.

The Verdict

Nickels doesn’t fully deliver on everything it sets up, but Rob Riggle’s committed, understated performance gives it real emotional weight regardless. It’s a film with more thoughtful instincts than execution, carried by a lead who clearly has more dramatic range than his résumé usually lets him show.

Rating: 3/5

Watch the Nickels Movie Trailer

Quick Facts

• Title: Nickels
• Director: Spencer King
• Writer: Tim Tuchrello
• Genre: Drama
• Starring: Rob Riggle, Bitsie Tulloch, Odessa A’zion, Aaron Holliday, Tom Arnold, Rebecca Gayheart, Vinessa Shaw
• Distributor: Briarcliff Entertainment
• Release date: October 2, 2026 (limited theaters and digital/VOD)

Where to Watch

Nickels opens in select theaters and on digital platforms on October 2, 2026, via Briarcliff Entertainment.

Have you seen “Nickels”? Share your thoughts in the comments below.