Available on DVD: “Mr. Nice”

Rhys Ifans as Mr. Nice

Howard Marks dubbed himself Mr. Nice as a means of evading the police of three continents during his career as a drug smuggler, which came to an end when he was imprisoned in the United States in the 1980s. After seven years in jail, he emerged to become an advocate for the legalization of cannabis and a raconteur who told tales of his drug-running years (complete with cameos by the IRA, MI6, and Pink Floyd) in best-selling books and at paid public appearances.

In this film version of Marks’ life, writer-director Bernard Rose (Candyman, Immortal Beloved) casts Rhys Ifans as this Robin Hood of reefer and runs him through Wales, Oxford, Swinging London, and various drug deals in Germany, Pakistan, Ireland, Mallorca, and L. A., with plenty of sex, danger, crooked cops, and stoned hijinks along the way.

Rose is a stylish filmmaker and Ifans is perfectly game for all that he’s asked to do (including, alas, play a Welsh schoolboy). But the film is built as a series of (possibly tall) tales that don’t add up to a plot, a theme or a purpose. Marks may be a gas as a storyteller, but there’s a long way between a string of anecdotes and an actual narrative film. And Mr. Nice, for all its energy, doesn’t make the transition.