James Absolon explains how this Pope-themed film, despite its risky premise, works
Alex Pollard reviews Hollywood's biopic of the controversial Margaret Thatcher
As spurious memoirs go, that of highly successful drug smuggler Howard Marks (the titular Mr Nice) seems to be one of the most ridiculous out there, detailing a life of crime that borders on the absurd. However, true or not, as you start ignoring this obviously suspect history and start simply trying to enjoy the film, it soon begins to live up to its name.
Mr Nice is supposed to be a comedic crime biopic and as such plays throughout with light, comic tone that, despite many opportunities to the contrary, never goes down any particularly dark routes, instead maintaining a rather comfortable yet unimaginative sense of excitement and fun. The central figure of Howard Marks is played very well by Rhys Ifans, who makes an extremely likeable and interesting lead. However, the film never really investigates the character’s sense of morality, happily turning him into a Robin Hood type figure. Ifans does a remarkable job of making a major drug lord look like a thoroughly likeable individual, more the sort of man you would meet down your local pub than insidious criminal mastermind. It’s also worth noting that the character never really seems to know just what he is doing, walking into the drug trade by accident and, on the whole, by further chance ending up becoming such a major criminal figure, a fact that helps to increase our sympathies.
All of which does play surprisingly well predominantly, thanks to its central role and some good pacing by director Bernard Rose, but at the same time disappointingly avoids anything particularly challenging. The film never tackles its subject directly – while certainly showing him in an interesting and likeable way, it never really gets to the bottom of the character’s being and never reveals who he truly is, something a good biopic should do. Therefore, although remaining entertaining and interesting throughout thanks to the offbeat and unusual take on serious crime, it never quite succeeds where it should. Furthermore, the film fails to examine its own politics. At no point does it give a decent examination of the issue on drugs, with only the arguments of the protagonist advocating marijuana. However problematic as this is, it is the characters affiliations with members of other organisations that caused me the biggest problem. When the protagonist makes friends with particularly psychotic members of the IRA, I found it hard to accept as part of a comedy and it made it much harder to empathise with him.
Overall, though, Mr Nice does deserve some attention, making for an enjoyable and somewhat unusual experience, thanks predominantly to some good direction and Rhys Ifans. His highly enjoyable and charismatic leading performance is by far the best thing in the film, yet the experience is spoiled by nagging doubts that the film never deals with alongside a lack of depth and a crucial inability to ever get to the heart of its protagonist.
Mr Nice goes on general release today.
You must log in to submit a comment.
