Mr. Nice

Mr Nice (US title Mr. Nice) is a 2010 British-Spanish crime-drama. Directed by Bernard Rose, Mr Nice is in part a biopic due to it being a loose film adaptation of Mr Nice, the 1997 cult autobiography by Howard Marks. The film features an ensemble cast starring Rhys Ifans as Howard Marks (with Marks himself giving Ifans instruction), along with David Thewlis, Omid Djalili and Jack Huston, with Crispin Glover and Chloë Sevigny. Ifans portrays Marks, a real-life 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 likes of 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' autobiography on which it is based, the film has polarized critics.