Mr. Nice

2011 "43 Aliases. 89 Phone Lines. This is the Story of Howard Marks."
6.3| 2h1m| R| en| More Info
Released: 03 June 2011 Released
Producted By: KanZaman Productions
Country: United Kingdom
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.independentfilmcompany.com/screeners/mr_nice.html#
Synopsis

Biopic about 1970s Welsh marijuana trafficker Howard Marks, whose inventive smuggling schemes made him a huge success in the drug trade, as well as leading to dealings with both the IRA and British Intelligence. Based on Marks' biography with the same title.

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Reviews

Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.
Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction
InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Twins65 This is a straight-ahead biopic on Howard Marks, who was a famous drug dealer in the U.K., and who I was unfamiliar with. It was very similar in style to "Blow", the biopic of George Jung, a big U.S.A. cocaine dealer from yesteryear played by Johnny Depp. It even included a shot with the aged, incarcerated Marks meeting with his children, just as Jung did at the end of "Blow", when his grown-up daughter showed up.Rhys Ifans plays Marks from his high school days (which surely was a stretch to look at) all the way to the very end, which shows him addressing a crowd after he's released from prison and lighting up a bat fat joint. He does a decent job, and is a very watchable actor. In between, we get the standard biopic narrative of how it all went down. The drugs are dealt, the money comes rolling in, and the law eventually shows up later. Included are some scenes with Jack Huston and a totally over-the-top David Thewlis, both great actors. Chloë Sevigny does an OK job pulling off a British accent while playing his wife, who also gets pinched along the way.Check it out if you're interested, but there's nothing ground-breaking going on in this movie.
l_rawjalaurence Howard Marks (Rhys Ifans) grew up in a Welsh village, went to Oxford a relative innocent, and emerged from university as a fully-fledged drug smuggler. He subsequently went on to become one of Britain's most celebrated (notorious?) drug barons, leading an exuberant lifestyle while successfully evading most attempts at capture. Bernard Rose's biopic encourages us to admire Rose's chutzpah, as he encounters a variety of shady characters, including practicing IRA member Jim McCann (David Thewlis, speaking in an eccentric Irish accent), and American cartel owner Ernie Combs (Crispin Glover). The film's tone remains lighthearted throughout, and there are some convincing scenes where modern-day actors are inserted into authentically Seventies archive scenes (complete with washed-out colors). But in truth MR. NICE does not have that much to say, either about the ethics - if there can be such a thing - of drug-smuggling, nor about the lengths to which people will go to try and evade customs-officers of various countries. It remains a rather slight crime-caper, distinguished mostly by Ifans' jaunty performance as Howard Marks.
dooble07 I have read a great deal about Howard Marx over the years and watched this film in the hope that it would meet my expectations and I was not disappointed. The film sticks pretty well to the book "Mr Nice" and although the book contains much more detail about the man & the events of his life, I thought the film did pretty well in giving you a accurate synopsis.In all if you have a liking for the "herb" then I would say that this film will give you an incite to an era that has now gone by. Portraying the romantic image that we all have of the 60's & 70's but illustrating the price that Howard payed in his chosen profession. Personally think I'll stick to the daily grind of 9 to 5!
qfanatiq Mr Nice - I read the book and went in knowing the film was not going to be as good as the book. So it was no surprise it was not. But unlike some other adaptations, it was horribly below the quality of the book.We should have experienced all manor of emotions, but instead I was left feeling all manor of disappointment. I am a fan of Rhys Ifans and also Howard Marks. But even with fond feelings of these people I could not help be feel let down.READ THE BOOK - Skip the film and read the book. I don't read much, only a few books in my 30+ years but this was one that grabbed me. The film, should have and could have grabbed me, but it knocked me into a stoned submission of comatose.I nearly walked out, they tried to cram too much in and while many normally complain adaptations supply not enough, or it did not follow the book in true form, for this it was the opposite. They tried too much and in an effort, it was all done too fast. It is hard to keep up. If I had not read the book, I would not have known what was going o, how, where, who or when.We go from the brilliantly cast Rhys Ifans to the damn right confused and outrageous bad placement of Omid Djalili, a rather weak stereotype.This could have been a deep flavoured and full bodied red wine. Instead it was a weakened squash that is so diluted it tastes like slightly sugared water with a funny colour. Shot beautifully capturing the different times with the technology of filming from that time. But let down far too much by the speed of story, the empty and incomplete endings to all the strings started but so few meeting at the beginning, middle or end it made me feel angry.