INDEPENDENT FILM FOR INDEPENDENT MINDS

Mr Nice follows Howard Marks (Rhys Ifans) from his salad days in Wales through his stint at Oxford, where he embraces the drug subculture, and on to his storied career as a drug dealer. For the latter, he never apologizes, explaining early on that a drug dealer is merely someone who sells the dope he can't consume by himself. Marks lucks into his vocation by helping a former Oxford classmate smuggle a carload of dope back from Germany. His success provides him entry into the demimonde of drug traffickers -- and earns the approval of the beautiful Judy (Chloe Sevigny), who gradually becomes his lover, the mother of his children and, eventually, his wife. Applying the same smarts and resourcefulness that got him into Oxford, Marks establishes an immensely profitable international smuggling enterprise. He audaciously enlists the aid of a fanatical IRA leader (David Thewlis) to run hashish through Ireland's Shannon Airport, and exploits a fortuitous contact by another former classmate (Christian McKay), an MI-5 operate who recruits Marks as a freelance spy. And when he opts to expand his business to the U.S., Marks finds a ready partner in an eccentric American libertine.