Posted: 10/07/2011

Mr. Nice

(2010)

by Joe Sanders

Available on DVD and Blu-Ray on October 11th from MPI Home Video

Dennis Howard Marks was a promising student at Oxford University before getting high at a party. After graduating and trying to give up drugs to be a teacher, Marks (Rhys Ifans) gets sucked into a dark world of drug trafficking and smuggling high-quality hashish to England from Ireland, Germany, and the Middle East. Along the way he meets his long time girlfriend and mother of his children, Judy (Chloe Sevigny), an IRA loyalist (David Thewlis), a goofy fellow drug dealer (Crispin Glover), and an Arabic hashish manufacturer (Omid Djalili). All these people, on top of Marks’ apparent superpower for getting people to trust him, contribute to his rise to enormous success over the course of the film.

Writer/Director Bernard Rose makes some interesting choices here. In terms of cementing our setting in the 1960s and 1970s, Rose utilizes a couple of old fashioned movie making techniques. Obvious uses of green screen technology as well as awkward camera pans help make it feel like the audience is watching a movie made during this time period. Some of these effects are a bit on the nose in their purpose. For example, the film shifts from black and white to color the first time Marks takes a hit off a joint. It’s maybe a little contrived and easy, but at least the director is trying to do something new with the format.

Rhys Ifans is smooth and cool in his portrayal of Howard Marks. One look at him and it’s easy to see why Marks was able to amount so much success through the use of solid charisma. He fills the role of basically a drug-smuggling rock star to perfection, seemingly making up everything about his drug dealing career as he goes along. The one awkward thing here is that, in the beginning of the film, Fines is supposed to be about 18 years old, but the filmmakers did nothing to try to make him look any younger, so the end result is quite awkward.

The entire ensemble is well-suited for their roles. David Thewlis stands out as James McCann. He partakes in some marijuana throughout the film, but his true drug seems to be defending his Irish homeland from the invading British infidels. He’s neurotic and paranoid and the amount of energy he brings to the film is a true asset. Crispin Glover joins the film later on and brings an almost childish innocence to the film. The juxtaposition between expertise and naiveté he then brings to the mix is a refreshing change in his scenes.

The biggest problem with the film is its length. It gets to a point where the audience is no longer watching so much as waiting for the end. There is some good stuff in the final 20 minutes of the film, but it would have been considerably better if they had found places throughout to make quick edits and tighten up the story.

Special features include a Making Of featurette and the original theatrical trailer. A Blu-ray copy may be preferable to some viewers as it better serves the director’s purpose in using the outdated filmmaking techniques discussed earlier.

Joe Sanders is a playwright and college instructor in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He has a Master’s degree in playwriting and a Bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Western Michigan University, where he currently teaches Thought and Writing.

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