Film Review - Mr Nice

Mr Nice portays the adventurous and some-what dangerous drug smuggling life of a placid scholar from Bridgend, Howard Marks. The light-hearted and comical biographical film features fellow Welshman Rhys Ifans depicting Marks from the very moment he discovered smoking in his halls at Oxford University after winning a scholarship to study Physics at Balliol.

The film follows 65-year-old Marks, who at one point had 43 aliases including Mr Nice, 89 phone lines, and 25 worldwide businesses, throughout his battle to balance marijuana smuggling with a developing family. His wife, Judy Marks who has also written a book, is played by Chloë Sevigny.

The director, Bernard Rose, uses projections of modern filming onto black and white scenes of London in the 1970’s, which arguably look unprofessional and fake, however the underlying aim to artistically retell this story by the director is understood.

Marks begins on stage by giving one of his lectures to an enthusiastic young audience, asking “Are there any undercover police officers here tonight?”

The long-haired and rather aged Marks continues on as his remarkable story of fortune and sorrow, down a road most unimaginable to you or I, comes to life. The film, which takes into account Marks self-written books, shows his “asexual orgasms” as he transports dope through customs, one in particular being in the speakers of the world-renowned group Pink Floyd. It shows his various secretive meetings with members of the IRA, MI6, Middle-Eastern businessmen (played by Omid Djallili) and the mafia.

The charismatic performance by Ifans is accompanied by a top-class performance by David Thewlis         playing Jim McCann of the provisional IRA. The chemistry between the two actors in scenes with broken walky-talkies and coded ‘nordle’ chats is explosive as the duo work together to transport hashish for Marks and arms and pornography for the deprived Irish McCann all over the world.

This British comedy, which comes with an age limit of 18 due to a number of rather heated and smoky scenes, sees Rhys Ifans play one of his best roles as a droll, naughty Welsh boy from the Valleys dodging national borders and security to get that high. However, the film ends with him serving seven years in a US federal penitentiary, where the story changes from a high-flying escapade to a lonely, secular but often influential view of the changes made in Marks’ life.

Howard Marks’ fans are sure to approve of this film, which started with one promise 13-years-ago from an active Marks to a very young Ifans… to play him in what Ifans describes as a “cautionary tale”