You don’t have to be stoned to watch “Mr. Nice,” but it might help to be in the same state of mind as its real-life anti-hero, drug kingpin Howard Marks.
Not only was Marks, in the words of a British tabloid, “the most sophisticated drug baron of all time,” but he was under the influence more often than not.
Directed by Bernard Rose from Marks’ autobiography, “Mr. Nice” features a hyper star performance by Rhys Ifans as the crude working-class lad who graduates from Oxford and becomes a teacher before discovering the physical and monetary delights of cannabis.
Marks’ decades-spanning story starts in black-and-white and switches to color when he first gets turned on.
He hops from country to country, including Pakistan, where he picks up the hash that makes him rich, and the US, where he drops in at New York hot spot Studio 54.
He’s also a master of aliases — 43, to be exact — one of them Mr. Nice.
Interesting, well-played characters come and go. David Thewlis is an IRA captain, and Crispin Glover is a heavily bearded California drug biggie.
Chloe Sevigny portrays Marks’ wife, Judy, the mother of their four children. But her part is sinfully underwritten, and she has trouble affecting a British accent.
The original musical soundtrack was written by Philip Glass.