Mr. Nice (2010)

The life story of Howard Marks, an elite British drug smuggler.

Director:

Bernard Rose

Writers:

Bernard Rose (screenplay), Howard Marks (based on the book by)

Stars:

Rhys Ifans, Chloë Sevigny, David Thewlis

1 win.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Rhys Ifans	...	Howard Marks
Chloë Sevigny	...	Judy Marks
David Thewlis	...	Jim McCann
Luis Tosar	...	Craig Lovato
Crispin Glover	...	Ernie Combs
Omid Djalili	...	Saleem Malik
Christian McKay	...	Hamilton McMillan
Elsa Pataky	...	Ilze Kadegis
Jack Huston	...	Graham Plinston
Jamie Harris	...	Patrick Lane
Sara Sugarman	...	Edna Marks
William Thomas	...	Dennis Marks
Andrew Tiernan	...	Alan Marcuson
Kinsey Packard	...	Patti Hayes
Ania Sowinski	...	Maureen

Storyline

The life story of Howard Marks, an elite British drug smuggler.

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Plot Keywords:

drugs | smuggler | hashish | drug smuggling | husband wife relationship | 

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Taglines:

Most Wanted. Most Wasted.

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Genres:

Biography | Comedy | Crime | Drama

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Details

Country:

UK Spain

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

3 June 2011 (USA)

Also Known As:

Mr. Joint

Filming Locations:

Benidorm, Alicante, Comunidad Valenciana, Spain

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

£134,846 (UK) (15 October 2010)

Gross:

£528,534 (UK) (15 October 2010)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Independent, Kanzaman, Prescience

Technical Specs

Runtime:

121 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Goofs

When Howard visits the airport of Shanon for the first time an ATC radar appears on the screen for couple of seconds. It is most likely a Marconi PSR system co-mounted with a MSSR radar which is too modern for the late 70s or early 80s.

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Quotes

Howard Marks: 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.

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Crazy Credits

The credits appear over a super slow motion shot of Howard Marks (Rhys Ifans) lighting and taking a toke from a joint.

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Soundtracks

"Lazy"
by Deep Purple

User Reviews

Read the book and don't go any further....

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.