Mr. Nice (2010)
Average Rating: 5.5/10
Reviews Counted: 44
Fresh: 24 | Rotten: 20
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 5.9/10
Critic Reviews: 12
Fresh: 9 | Rotten: 3
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 3,816
My Rating
Movie Info
Howard Marks (Rhys Ifans) was a young Welshman studying at Oxford when he discovered there was something unusual about his dorm room -- it had a secret passageway that led to a storage space used by one of the school's top marijuana dealers. Marks and the dealer struck up a friendship as he became an enthusiastic customer, and a few years later, when plans to bring a large cache of hashish into England via Germany went haywire, Marks stepped in to help and was introduced to a circle of big
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Cast
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Rhys Ifans
Howard Marks -
Chloë Sevigny
Judy Marks -
David Thewlis
Jim McCann -
Crispin Glover
Ernie Combs -
Luis Tosar
Craig Lovato -
Omid Djalili
Saleem Malik -
Jamie Harris
Patrick Lane -
Christian McKay
Hamilton McMillan -
Elsa Pataky
Ilze -
Jack Huston
Graham Plinston -
Sara Sugarman
Edna Marks -
William Thomas
Dennis Marks -
Andrew Tiernan
Alan Marcuson -
Kinsey Packard
Patti Hayes -
Ania Sowinski
Maureen
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Mr. Nice Trailer & Photos
All Critics (46) | Top Critics (12) | Fresh (25) | Rotten (20) | DVD (2)
Though the film takes a while to cast its spell, writer-director-cinematographer Bernard Rose's close observation of Marks and those around him becomes increasingly involving and allows Rose to comment on the widespread failure of the war on drugs.
Top CriticThe writer-director tells the story with verve and small-budget ingenuity.
Ifans looks 20 years too old for the part, and the problem with the movie is it seems so desperate to be made that it barely cares that he spends half of his time miscast.
Effortlessly captures the looks, attitudes and the various mentalities of the period from the late 1960s and early 1970s, through the transition from the hippie era into the Studio 54 days, followed by the Just-Say-No retrenchment of the 1980s.
Writer-director Bernard Rose lets the picture bop along a little too loosely, but the vibes are good.
What we're left with is a sort of contact high, drifting gently over to our seats in the back row.
I'd recommend the similar "Blow" first, and I didn't even like that movie much.
Overly relying on narration, Mr. Nice tells much more than it shows.
Ultimately, Mr. Nice doesn't transcend its genre, but the title character is a bright addition to the cinematic rogues' gallery of charmers for whom the real high isn't the drugs or the cash, but the con.
[Ifans] captures the character's charisma and cool, and it's fun to ride shotgun with him. But the script isn't pointed enough to drill beneath the surface.
Marks may be a gas as a storyteller, but there's a long way between a string of anecdotes and an actual narrative film. And "Mr. Nice," for all its energy, doesn't make the transition.
We're always ready to accept Ifans as a hedonistic daredevil.
what Mr. Nice offers is a stylish and fascinating biography that, while perhaps playing loose with the facts, knows that it's far more entertaining to watch the highs than the lows.
The pattern dictates that what goes up must come down - hard. So, unfortunately, Bernard Rose's film about Howard Marks' life follows a predictable path.
Mr. Nice lacks the unifying thematic rage, or drive, that might have tied the good moments into a coherent, satisfying whole.
Drug dealer biopic wants to be a fun ride but is undone by hipper-than-thou direction and a maddeningly opaque central performance by Rhys Ifans.
Thewlis' great talent has been MIA since Mike Leigh's 1993 Naked but here he delivers a caricature of British cultural audacity that is so outrageously vivid it deserves the term Dickensian.
Audience Reviews for Mr. Nice
Based on the hugely successful autobiography of the same name, Mr. Nice tells the incredible story of the life of Howard Marks, "the world's most sophisticated drug smuggler."
REVIEW
Rhys Ifans plays Howard Marks in a movie based around the Welsh drug dealer's biography. We go from Marks' entry to Oxford (where he first discovered the delights of smoking dope) to his brief brush with conventionality, followed by his first occasion of importing a Mercedes full of cannabis, his association with IRA gunman and drug importer Jim McCann (David Thewlis), and assorted escapades, brushes with the law, assumed identities and so on. Throughout all this he continues to father additional children with long suffering partner/wife Judy (Chloe Sevigny), and he appears to be a good father, loving and loved.
What to make of this? Well, it always holds the interest, it is well acted by all involved (albeit Sevigny's role is pretty thankless), and much of it has a reasonable sense of period (in particular, Ifans is inserted into period newsreel footage with mixed results), with some good use of period music (John Lennon's "God" is particularly well placed). It is sometimes amusing, seldom gripping, and be non-judgemental - Marks' exploits are presented to us and we are left to come to our own conclusions as to how right or wrong he was.
The illegality of his actions is not condemned: however, although there are several points where one gets the feeling that the filmmakers' sympathies lie with the legalising marijuana lobby, it is difficult not to take on board the drastic consequences for Marks and his family when he is apprehended and the excuses no longer work. I ended up being as morally compromised as the movie - it was a worthwhile exercise to make the film, I think, but I am no wiser as to where Marks would stand if we were all to line up and be judged. And maybe that is how it should be.
Super Reviewer
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- Lovato: I'm on the run, you see.
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- Howard Marks: Are you asking me to be a spy?
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Howard Marks's story, manner and humour. He's quite a cool character in my book and I thought Rhys Ifans did him justice. I enjoyed the film although I'm a little frustrated with myself that I didn't read the book first. I did get the impression that a lot was skipped over though, years passed without mention etc but getting a film adaptation of someones life is always a struggle, for what its worth I though the film was entertaining and enjoyable with a great cast.