This is a straight-ahead biopic on Howard Marks, who was a famous drug dealer in the U.K., and who I was unfamiliar with. It was very similar in style to "Blow", the biopic of George Jung, a big U.S.A. cocaine dealer from yesteryear played by Johnny Depp. It even included a shot with the aged, incarcerated Marks meeting with his children, just as Jung did at the end of "Blow", when his grown-up daughter showed up.
Rhys Ifans plays Marks from his high school days (which surely was a stretch to look at) all the way to the very end, which shows him addressing a crowd after he's released from prison and lighting up a bat fat joint. He does a decent job, and is a very watchable actor. In between, we get the standard biopic narrative of how it all went down. The drugs are dealt, the money comes rolling in, and the law eventually shows up later. Included are some scenes with Jack Huston and a totally over-the-top David Thewlis, both great actors. Chloë Sevigny does an OK job pulling off a British accent while playing his wife, who also gets pinched along the way.
Check it out if you're interested, but there's nothing ground-breaking going on in this movie.
Rhys Ifans plays Marks from his high school days (which surely was a stretch to look at) all the way to the very end, which shows him addressing a crowd after he's released from prison and lighting up a bat fat joint. He does a decent job, and is a very watchable actor. In between, we get the standard biopic narrative of how it all went down. The drugs are dealt, the money comes rolling in, and the law eventually shows up later. Included are some scenes with Jack Huston and a totally over-the-top David Thewlis, both great actors. Chloë Sevigny does an OK job pulling off a British accent while playing his wife, who also gets pinched along the way.
Check it out if you're interested, but there's nothing ground-breaking going on in this movie.