Mr. Nice

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.

I hadn't read much about the film before seeing it. Afterwards, I'd say it is one part sexy, stoned, witty fun. One part light-hearted crime caper (almost, but not quite, getting too repetitive). And one part 'serious issues.' The film is very loosely inspired by the life of Howard Marks.

Part One. Howard (Rhys Ifans) goes from a tiny school in Wales to become a successful Oxford graduate, consuming large amounts of marijuana on the way (plus a tiny bit of LSD, probably a lot of sex, and a small amount of alcohol). After Oxford, he gives up drugs to become a teacher. But when a pal is stranded trying to bring a car full of resin home, he kindly steps in and finds it rather lucrative. The difference between someone who smokes and someone he deals is, as he puts it, the first smokes all they have; whereas the second has more than they can humanly smoke. He's drawn into the Secret Service in passing, who like his ability to move between borders and attract ladies.

I found Part One very funny. I have a slight problem with Rhys Ifans looking the same age at the beginning of the film as he does many years later, and after a fairly long stretch in prison. But it didn't distract me from enjoying it. His Welsh humour finds its mark, the comedic editing and timing is flawless, and for anyone over a certain age it has elements of a trip down memory lane. When David Thewlis chimes in (convincingly) as an IRA leader, Jim McCann, offering to supply planes to ferry the stuff over, heavyweight Irish hilarity meets Welsh wit. The head-on result is riotous, and yet never predictable or stilted. Add to that, my favourite fall-in-love-with-the-bad-guy actress, Ms Chloë Sevigny, and I am in for the ride.

Part Two consists of several cat-and-mouse chases as they evade capture. I did wonder if they were going to keep it up till the end of the movie, but it gives me a chance to look out for a tiny cameo by king-of-the bad-boy directors himself, Mr Ken Russell. (Look carefully or you will miss him – in the background at one of the passport check sequences.)

Part Three is when we start to see what the movie's serious undercurrent is, and it accordingly leaps in my estimation. Remember Steven Soderbergh's film, Traffic? If you came out of that thinking every sensible, well-supported argument on legalising marijuana had been made – and still there was no change in government policy – it's time to realise that rational argument is not going to change articles of faith. Can humour help? Mr Nice doesn't make moral judgements. But the natural facts speak for themselves. The main character and his associates never use hard drugs (stated emphatically). There are no perceptible harmful effects (other than Howard and friends enjoying what they do). There are considerable beneficial effects. Especially notable is the scene where a man discovers his partner being unfaithful. We expect violence. If they had been drinking alcohol – a drug with far more proved harmful effects – violence would almost inevitably followed. Instead, they get momentarily outraged: then share a joint. From my limited student experience of the dope-smoking 'scene' many years ago, this is an entirely plausible reaction. The association with 'organised crime' (here, the IRA in the form Jim McCann) is clearly a result of anti-drugs legislation, not the other way around. The misery inflicted is the emphatically the result of anti-drugs legislation, not the use of the drug (Sevigny especially comes into her element with some emotionally moving end-scenes. Yes, I did shed a tear. And Sevigny managed a very nice English accent to boot).

The filmmakers must have wondered if smoking marijuana would be decriminalised before Mr Nice was released – but the UK government, in one of the many pre-election scandals, ignored the advice of its own experts and continued to include hash in the 'war on drugs.' As Soderbergh said years ago, "We can't have a frank discussion with our policymakers - if you're in the government or in law enforcement you cannot acknowledge that drugs are anything but inherently evil and morally wrong." Bottom line: there is too much money and jobs tied up in 'drugs enforcement' to legalise them. But I should stress that this is my 'reading' of the film. Someone opposed to decriminalisation might reach an entirely different conclusion, and from watching the very same film.

On the downside, two hours of largely hash-based comedy could be very wearisome for anyone that hasn't had at least passing familiarity with the stuff. Other complaints might include Rhys Ifans not seeing him get his shirt off often enough (though I lost count of the number of times he did). Or whether Ms Sevigny used a stand-in for the brief times her shirt was off. On the plus side, it made me proud that Britain could turn out solid, constructive comedy. Rather than kitchen-sink drama based (as Ken Russell might say) on 'football in the Midlands.' Sometimes laughter, well done, can maybe reach places that common sense alone cannot reach.

I was pleasantly surprised by this film. I honestly did not expect that I would enjoy it after having read the book.

Last year I read Joseph D Pistone's "Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life In The Mafia" and watched the film immediately afterwards and I felt the film paled in comparison to the book. Therefore after I had read "Mr Nice" and knew there was a film adaptation I felt it would be as big a disappointment as Donnie Brasco.

On this basis I left it a couple of months after reading the book before watching Mr Nice and as a result I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome. When I put the DVD in and it starts off with Rhys Ifans in front of a crowd asking if anybody was a plains cloths officer I had my doubts about how the film would be portrayed but once the black and white prologue turned to colour I was gripped.

Obviously this is not a perfect account of Howard Mark's life as many people have said you can not translate a 600 page book into a 2 hour film without missing many parts out but I feel it was not so much a literal depiction of the book but rather a visual interpretation of Howard Mark's life using the book as a starting point. As others have mentioned it leaves out much of his life based in Hong Kong and Thailand and The Phillipines as well as the feeling of despair when confronted with being deported to the United States and even the fact the judge called the wrong outcome which is something a film would normally expand upon. Every actor in this film felt believable as the character they portray.

I enjoyed this film more than I ever expected to therefore I feel a rating of 7 is justified. However I do feel the need to criticise the few scenes that earned this film an 18 rating. Jim McCann getting his knob out and the tooth extraction scene near the end of the film felt unnecessary. Don't get me wrong I prefer films to have scenes which disgust but there is a place for that sort of thing and I did not feel this film warranted it. It could have reached a better audience had it skipped these scenes and had a 15 rating.

However I feel I may have rated this film higher than it deserves based on not being disappointed, which made me feel relieved.

First and foremost, if you haven't read the book or seen the film. Then please read the book first. Then if you want to afterwards, watch the film. Now I fully appreciate that novels, films, plays etc are all different forms of art and ways of telling stories, and people shouldn't always compare a film to the original book so harshly as most do. But immediately two books spring to mind that the writer of the novel has done a fantastic job, and so has the film in adapting it, I speak of, 'No Country for Old Men' and 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Cowards Robert Ford'. However, with 'Mr. Nice', the book is greatly written, it is funny, witty, heartwarming and a general entertaining easy read which is fantastic coming from such an intelligent man who doesn't have to prove himself by filling the novel with big clever words. But what he does do is fill it will the entirety of his life that makes for a fun and interesting read, that creates characters in your head you can picture so well and understand, and even at the end of wish you could of been apart of his life (for the good times anyway). Now the best way to describe what Bernard Rose did to the book to make the film was simply pick it up, and flick through it all in the that quick motion we can do with our thumb, letting the pages slide by and fan us as it goes. This is what the film felt like to me. It had no structure in terms of story to it, just episodes of the book he could pick out with his eyes as the pages flew past him and then shot it, and in the editing room tried to string them together to get some sort of story out it. Even if I hadn't read the book before and knew all that Rose had left out, I still wouldn't have connected with any of the characters on the screen or the story itself. You may say that a four hundred page book is difficult to squeeze into a two hour film, and that is fair enough, but I ask you to only look towards what Jackson and Walsh did for the LOTR. This then leads me to believe that Rose has no real writing skills and doesn't really no what a story is. Nor editing for that matter. But what annoyed me the most I think for this film is the total lack of knowledge towards the characters he was portraying on the film, now I may have read the book differently, and this is just my opinion, but I don't feel any of the characters were captured at all on the screen, especially Jim McCann, and every scene never went anywhere or made me feel anything towards them or the connection they should have with another. Like I said before, it just felt like Rose had took bits of the book out and tried stringing them together, giving us no real story or character arc. The only saving grace for this film for me was the fact that Rose remembered to put in a few of the good bits from the book itself, such as the funny scene in both book and film of when McCann and Marks are trying to talk to each other over the radio.

Nothing really serious, this just tries to entertain you. And it does achieve it most of the time. The acting is really good. Though I'm not sure if this is really based on anything that really happened (and if so, how accurate it did handle it).

The humor is not to everyones taste and there is a weird mixture with drama and adult themes going on. The UK rating still seemed a bit too high for my taste (no pun intended). It must have been the themes it did touch I guess. The story has bumps here and there, that do not allow you to be completely on top of it. Still despite those flaws, there is much fun to be had, with the rest of it.