An oft-repeated mantra in “Mr. Nice” is the protagonist’s observation that his line of work wouldn’t be possible without his clients.
Because when it comes to selling drugs, he notes, the word “pusher” is a misnomer. His customers come to him, demanding his wares, not the other way around.
“Mr. Nice” is a crazy-quilt biography of Howard Marks, a small-town Welshman who cut a swinging figure in British culture during the 1960s and ’70s.
It’s a fine role for the looming Welsh actor Rhys Ifans (recently palling around with Ben Stiller in “Greenberg”), who drifts from one crazy situation to the next with a blend of good humor and passivity.
Marks arrives in Oxford in the mid-’60s as an innocent, but soon gets into the business of selling weed.
From there it’s a few short hops to a worldwide empire, a bizarre connection to Her Majesty’s secret service, and a volatile collaboration with an Irish Republican Army militant (David Thewlis at his most creepy-crawly).
Director Bernard Rose (“Candyman”) rolls this out at a Scorsese-like pace, bopping quickly through the highlights and low points of Marks’s life.
Chloe Sevigny (“Big Love”) co-stars as a woman who actually sticks around as Marks skirts the margins of getting caught.
Rose is a talented director, and while he knows that Howard Marks’ life choices were morally dubious, he doesn’t give the movie a judgmental position on all this. We can discern for ourselves that there’s a toll taken in this kind of world.
The movie’s more concerned with chronicling the sheer weirdness of it all: like the time Marks survived a car accident in the Irish countryside and needed to use the phone at the local pub to talk with his contact in Pakistan.
The movie’s got a great sense of how unreal this life is. At one point someone cautions Marks, “This is a not a James Bond movie.”
His response is, “Well it certainly seems like one!”
He’s right.
“Mr. Nice” also has a pleasing sense of the period, which is occasionally evoked by digitally inserting Rhys Ifans into old footage from the time. It’s not quite convincing, but it is a little trippy, which I suppose is appropriate to the subject matter.
Having enjoyed a good deal of “Mr. Nice,” I have to say I was underwhelmed overall, mostly because I’m not quite sure why the movie exists.
Yes, it’s diverting to see what Marks got away with, and yes, there’s a lingering sense that people are going to use drugs whether the stuff is illegal or not.
But the movie feels like an exercise. Fun to watch, especially if you like the period, but oddly weightless in the end.
“Mr. Nice” (2½ stars)
A chronicle of the life of Howard Marks (good role for Rhys Ifans), a Welsh drug dealer who achieved some level of fame in the 1960s and ’70s, and whose crazy life overlapped with the British secret service and the IRA. The movie’s fun to watch, but in the end it feels like a weightless exercise.
Rated: Not rated; probably R for nudity, subject matter.
Showing: Varsity.
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