Howard Marks (played by Rhys Ifans) started off as a kid who was smart but got beat up a lot. When faking his way out of having to play rugby, young Howard Marks spent all his time in his studies to get high grades. When one of his teachers suggests that he should go to Oxford and after applying to the school Howard Marks is accepted in. It’s the best thing that had happened to him and quite possibly the worst as well. During his time at Oxford Howard Marks is introduced to the world of drugs and from that point on he uses his knowledge to become one of the most wanted drug dealers during the 70’s and 80’s. Taking on the guise of Mr. Nice, Howard Marks was taking his business around the world selling drugs all the while being investigated for drug smuggling.

MR. NICE:
I’ve never heard of the man Howard Marks but according to this movie Mr. Nice, Howard Marks was a big time drug dealer in the 70’s and 80’s. He was a smart man according to this that took to selling drugs like a fish to water. The plot is about a man who wants to sell drugs but seems to be more interested in the fun and glory of doing it than the money and then getting caught for it. While doing so he meet his wife Judy (played by Chloe Sevigny who sticks by him through the good and bad years of his life. Thing is though, I was trying to follow along with the point of the movie and it seems to have lost it’s way and forgot to tell me what was going on with some of the characters.

What confused me with the plot was when it was brought up that any one of Howard Marks friends could turn him in and when he is finally arrested I was expecting it was because of someone turning him in. Never is any of his friend implicated as being the one or if there was one, the person that turned Howard Marks in. During the trail there are some that point him out as being the head of the drug cartel but that was after the fact of being caught. What seems to happen in Mr. Nice is that the story is being told but only certain aspects leaving some gaps in the plot while just highlighting some key moments. It can be followed in a way where I knew he was selling drugs with some idea of how he was able to smuggle them, but overall I missed the actions he took do it.

 
Rhys Ifans who plays the role of Howard Marks does a good job in the role once the character was an adult but for some reason the director decided to use Rhys Ifans as the young Howard Marks before and during his years at Oxford. It looks horrible seeing this grown, middle aged man, trying to play a role of a teenager and then a man in his early 20’s. He don’t look that young at any point during the beginning of this movie and it makes the movie look horrible. The whole time I was just laughing at the idea of Rhys Ifans playing a role that was half his age or more. Though once the movie reached the point where he was playing the adult version of Howard Marks, Rhys Ifans does a pretty good job as the character. He has this charm to him that makes the character seem likable even though he’s a drug dealer.
I was impressed with the role that Chloe Sevigny plays as the wife Judy Marks. The relationship of the character with Howard Marks was one that was supposed to be true and strong love, enough so that she stuck with him during his arrest and waited for him while in prison. The chemistry between Rhys Ifans and Chloe Sevigny in this movie made it believable that this woman would have waited for her husband for 25 years if she had to. These two characters played well off each other and with each other, which is about the only high point this movie has. Everyone else seems to just be playing these characters that are only on the screen for a few minutes so they just play it as kind of a joke. Crispin Glover, who is a great actor, played the role of Ernie Combs, another drug dealer, with no real actor skill that this actor has. He seem just to be there in the role and then it was over. This is actually about how the movie goes, it starts, it’s there, and then it’s over. Mr. Nice didn’t leave much of a impression on and if I was asked 5 years from now what I thought of this movie I doubt I will even remember watching it.

BLU RAY OF MR. NICE:
Another down side to this movie was the way this Blu Ray looks. I’ve seen better transfers of movies that were made in the 80’s being put on Blu Ray than this movie that was just made during the age of Blu Rays. From the start there is a lot of visible noise being seen on the picture, both for day and night scenes. When there are darker scenes and black in the scene, the noise is prominent making the picture look bad. Worse yet the audio levels are not that great. I had to turn up the volume for the dialog moments but anytime music, sirens, or any other noise was made that was someone talking, I had to rush to get the volume levels turned down. Considering there are a lot of scenes that feature music and other sounds in this movie, I had to keep the remote in my hand for the full 2 hours of this movie. For a Blu Ray, Mr. Nice looked no different than what a DVD made 15 years ago would have looked like.