I was pleasantly surprised by this film. I honestly did not expect that I would enjoy it after having read the book.
Last year I read Joseph D Pistone's "Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life In The Mafia" and watched the film immediately afterwards and I felt the film paled in comparison to the book. Therefore after I had read "Mr Nice" and knew there was a film adaptation I felt it would be as big a disappointment as Donnie Brasco.
On this basis I left it a couple of months after reading the book before watching Mr Nice and as a result I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome. When I put the DVD in and it starts off with Rhys Ifans in front of a crowd asking if anybody was a plains cloths officer I had my doubts about how the film would be portrayed but once the black and white prologue turned to colour I was gripped.
Obviously this is not a perfect account of Howard Mark's life as many people have said you can not translate a 600 page book into a 2 hour film without missing many parts out but I feel it was not so much a literal depiction of the book but rather a visual interpretation of Howard Mark's life using the book as a starting point. As others have mentioned it leaves out much of his life based in Hong Kong and Thailand and The Phillipines as well as the feeling of despair when confronted with being deported to the United States and even the fact the judge called the wrong outcome which is something a film would normally expand upon. Every actor in this film felt believable as the character they portray.
I enjoyed this film more than I ever expected to therefore I feel a rating of 7 is justified. However I do feel the need to criticise the few scenes that earned this film an 18 rating. Jim McCann getting his knob out and the tooth extraction scene near the end of the film felt unnecessary. Don't get me wrong I prefer films to have scenes which disgust but there is a place for that sort of thing and I did not feel this film warranted it. It could have reached a better audience had it skipped these scenes and had a 15 rating.
However I feel I may have rated this film higher than it deserves based on not being disappointed, which made me feel relieved.
