Mr Nice

Mr Nice
Directed byBernard Rose
Screenplay byBernard Rose
Based onMr Nice
by Howard Marks
Produced byLuc Roeg
Starring
CinematographyBernard Rose
Edited by
  • Teresa Font
  • Bernard Rose
Music byPhilip Glass
Production
companies
Independent Film Productions
Kanzaman
Distributed byContender Entertainment (UK)
Release dates
  • 14 March 2010 (2010-03-14) (SXSW)
  • 8 October 2010 (2010-10-08) (United Kingdom)
  • 20 July 2012 (2012-07-20) (Spain)
Running time
121 minutes
Countries
  • United Kingdom
  • Spain
LanguageEnglish

Mr Nice (US title Mr. Nice) is a 2010 crime drama film written and directed by Bernard Rose, Mr Nice is in part a biopic, a loose film adaptation of Mr Nice, the cult 1997 autobiography by Howard Marks. The film features an ensemble cast starring Rhys Ifans as Howard Marks, along with David Thewlis, Omid Djalili, Jack Huston, Crispin Glover and Chloë Sevigny.

Ifans portrays Marks, a Welsh marijuana smuggler who ran one of the biggest global cannabis smuggling operations from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, mostly while on the run. Marks associated with some of the more colourful characters of the era, allegedly even cutting deals with the FBI, the Mafia, the IRA and MI6. After serving time in Terre Haute, one of the "toughest" prisons in the United States, Marks stopped smuggling and dealing in cannabis (although he still openly used the drug himself) and gained wider fame as a pro-cannabis campaigner, stand-up comedian, actor (at least in cameos), lads' mag columnist, television show panelist, music producer, motivational speaker, and even prospective Member of Parliament.

Like Marks's autobiography on which it is based, the film has polarised critics.