A 2010 true story adapted from the book Mr. Nice by Howard Marks starring Rhys Ifans, Chloe Sevigny, David Thewlis, Christian Mackay, Elsa Pataky, Crispin Glover.
Oxford University student Howard Marks (Rhys Ifans) becomes an international drug smuggler with alleged connections to MI6, the IRA and the Mafia.
I haven’t snooped about a movie before, I don’t find time to watch that many but I loved this one so much I really wanted to recommend it. It’s a better than great film would be suitable for anyone from ages 12 up. Shows British culture beautifully to an international audience as well as keeping you completely hooked in the story and the colourful cast of characters that take you through historical and global events and milestones.
I’ve watched this movie before and despite remembering it was brilliant and worth watching again the second experience was completely engrossing and almost like watching for the first time, with highlights of oh I remember this bit. Or oh yes, this bit was really good.
Notable for it’s fast moving and extremely witty script Ifans plays the charismatic rogue Howard Marks to a tee, his rock star swagger and the equally gorgeous women in his life, first wife, Ilze, Elsa Pataky and then Judy Marks, Chloe Sevegny in the action crime drug heist movie, except it’s a true story of super bright boy from the welsh valleys whose life changes completely when he gets accepted to Oxford University on a scholarship in the 1960s.
What happens on the rollercoaster ride of a journey that begins with Marks addressing a theatre audience as he shares his adventure of becoming the most prolific international trafficker of cannabis with the assistance of Jim McCann of the provisional IRA.
James Joseph McCann (born 1939) is a figure linked to Irish republicanism who was involved in the smuggling of arms to the Provisional IRA during the 1970s and later became associated with drug trafficking.
It’s a whacky and heart rending story told beautifully by director Bernard Rose, that begins in black and white (I didn’t remember that at all) but makes a significant impact in how the story unfolds over time.
The clothes, the styling, the script will endear anyone whose parents grew up in the 60’s and 70’s working class Britain. The references in the black and white styling and Marks home in Wales, UK make a stark contrast to his millionaire lifestyle later in life.
It’s such a fantastic movie with gorgeous Rhys Ifans, who often plays the idiot in films like Notting Hill, Twin Town and then as British comedic icon Peter Cook in Not Only But Always a role which earned him a BAFTA.
But it is in Mr. Nice he comes alive as the sexiest of leading men, I know difficult to imagine but even if you don’t like a Welsh accent, coming from someone with a Swedish one, (both difficult to understand for some people) this is easily overcome.
The film in some ways reminded me of Leonardo Di Caprio in Catch me if you Can, another true story about a very clever out of the box individual who decided on a life of crime and spent years evading law enforcement.
Howard marks was eventually caught and extradited to the US where he ended up serving 7 years in detention in Indiana. Sentenced to 25 years he was released in 1995 for good behaviour.
In the film it is documented he educated other prisoners during his detention teaching them to read and write and served his time as “prison attorney” filing appeals on behalf of other prisoners. He is quoted in the film as believing he could evade law enforcement because even with his new name, Mr. Nice, everyone knew who he was and could have given him up at any time, he believed no one would because they genuinely liked him and thought him a “nice guy.” Something that proved not necessarily so when his associates and friends were called to give evidence against him at his trial.
My favourite quote from the movie
“ A dealer is really just someone who buys more dope than he can smoke. And I have to say, I'm ashamed, I tried to smoke it all. There was just too fuckin' much of it.”
This movie is funny, sad, gorgeous charismatic acting, full of wonderful locations, costumes and style. I do wonder why more people have not watched it: definitely up there in my top 30 movies of all time.