Touches You

A Masterpiece!

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Reading the book Mr. Nice was a thrilling roller-coaster ride from start to finish. I so thoroughly enjoyed the book that when I found out a movie was made i was over the moon and could not wait to watch it. When I got my hands on the movie I threw it on my big screen, surround sound, recliner chair, herbs popcorn, pint of home brew I was set for the night. After forcing myself to endure the torture it took to finish the movie I felt in a way ripped off that the movie didn't catch even 1% of the spirit of the book Mr Nice. Had my disappointment in the movie been due my own unreasonable expectations? Well, my wife who hadn't read the book thought it was a boring movie with her favorite part being the song at the end. For me the story jumped around around like a broken record, failing to capture the spirit of this amazing story, and putting forward a very dull script without any heart, soul or passion. The movie fails to deliver many of the interesting aspects of the book and many of the important sections are completely missing from the film. Not recommended to anyone who has read the book. And for those who haven't read Mr. Nice, maybe overlook my harsh review and give the movie a go, as low expectations can sometimes surprise.

A common problem with biographical films about notorious con-men (or marijuana drug dealers) is whether to show them as sympathetic, or ruthless—as they usually are. The problem with "Mr. Nice" and Howard Marks (Rhys Ifans) is that there wasn't enough meaningful scenes showing us who Howard Marks was at all. For those like me, who didn't know who he was before the film, this is a really big problem.Rhys Ifans is very good at mumbling and speaking rather unintelligibly but making it humorous, entertaining, and somehow understandable. This would be a much more positive trait if the voice of his character wasn't supposed to be as important as it seemingly was. Although I still don't know who he was so I can't say if Howard Marks was an important voice to society or not.It was certainly more artistic and thoughtful than most marijuana movies are, but much less artistic and thoughtful than the best character studies. Again, this is a pretty big problem—if you're expecting more than just a marijuana movie, which I was. I wanted to be educated, while entertained, about this supposedly important person, but I was not.

First and foremost, if you haven't read the book or seen the film. Then please read the book first. Then if you want to afterwards, watch the film. Now I fully appreciate that novels, films, plays etc are all different forms of art and ways of telling stories, and people shouldn't always compare a film to the original book so harshly as most do. But immediately two books spring to mind that the writer of the novel has done a fantastic job, and so has the film in adapting it, I speak of, 'No Country for Old Men' and 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Cowards Robert Ford'. However, with 'Mr. Nice', the book is greatly written, it is funny, witty, heartwarming and a general entertaining easy read which is fantastic coming from such an intelligent man who doesn't have to prove himself by filling the novel with big clever words. But what he does do is fill it will the entirety of his life that makes for a fun and interesting read, that creates characters in your head you can picture so well and understand, and even at the end of wish you could of been apart of his life (for the good times anyway). Now the best way to describe what Bernard Rose did to the book to make the film was simply pick it up, and flick through it all in the that quick motion we can do with our thumb, letting the pages slide by and fan us as it goes. This is what the film felt like to me. It had no structure in terms of story to it, just episodes of the book he could pick out with his eyes as the pages flew past him and then shot it, and in the editing room tried to string them together to get some sort of story out it. Even if I hadn't read the book before and knew all that Rose had left out, I still wouldn't have connected with any of the characters on the screen or the story itself. You may say that a four hundred page book is difficult to squeeze into a two hour film, and that is fair enough, but I ask you to only look towards what Jackson and Walsh did for the LOTR. This then leads me to believe that Rose has no real writing skills and doesn't really no what a story is. Nor editing for that matter. But what annoyed me the most I think for this film is the total lack of knowledge towards the characters he was portraying on the film, now I may have read the book differently, and this is just my opinion, but I don't feel any of the characters were captured at all on the screen, especially Jim McCann, and every scene never went anywhere or made me feel anything towards them or the connection they should have with another. Like I said before, it just felt like Rose had took bits of the book out and tried stringing them together, giving us no real story or character arc. The only saving grace for this film for me was the fact that Rose remembered to put in a few of the good bits from the book itself, such as the funny scene in both book and film of when McCann and Marks are trying to talk to each other over the radio.

Mr Nice - I read the book and went in knowing the film was not going to be as good as the book. So it was no surprise it was not. But unlike some other adaptations, it was horribly below the quality of the book.We should have experienced all manor of emotions, but instead I was left feeling all manor of disappointment. I am a fan of Rhys Ifans and also Howard Marks. But even with fond feelings of these people I could not help be feel let down.READ THE BOOK - Skip the film and read the book. I don't read much, only a few books in my 30+ years but this was one that grabbed me. The film, should have and could have grabbed me, but it knocked me into a stoned submission of comatose.I nearly walked out, they tried to cram too much in and while many normally complain adaptations supply not enough, or it did not follow the book in true form, for this it was the opposite. They tried too much and in an effort, it was all done too fast. It is hard to keep up. If I had not read the book, I would not have known what was going o, how, where, who or when.We go from the brilliantly cast Rhys Ifans to the damn right confused and outrageous bad placement of Omid Djalili, a rather weak stereotype.This could have been a deep flavoured and full bodied red wine. Instead it was a weakened squash that is so diluted it tastes like slightly sugared water with a funny colour. Shot beautifully capturing the different times with the technology of filming from that time. But let down far too much by the speed of story, the empty and incomplete endings to all the strings started but so few meeting at the beginning, middle or end it made me feel angry.