Mr. Nice 2010

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Ifans looks 20 years too old for the part, and the problem with the movie is it seems so desperate to be made that it barely cares that he spends half of his time miscast. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: If "Mr. Nice," which was written and directed by Bernard Rose, is steadily watchable, it lopes along without building much tension. Read more

Eric Hynes, Time Out: This boppy biopic pushes a wealth of outrageous incidents while never making anything resembling a point. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: Though it's all over the map, tonally and thematically, Mr. Nice succeeds at showing how illegality breeds illegality. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Writer-director Bernard Rose lets the picture bop along a little too loosely, but the vibes are good. Read more

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: Though the film takes a while to cast its spell, writer-director-cinematographer Bernard Rose's close observation of Marks and those around him becomes increasingly involving and allows Rose to comment on the widespread failure of the war on drugs. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: What we're left with is a sort of contact high, drifting gently over to our seats in the back row. Read more

V.A. Musetto, New York Post: Interesting, well-played characters come and go. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Effortlessly captures the looks, attitudes and the various mentalities of the period from the late 1960s and early 1970s, through the transition from the hippie era into the Studio 54 days, followed by the Just-Say-No retrenchment of the 1980s. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: [Ifans] captures the character's charisma and cool, and it's fun to ride shotgun with him. But the script isn't pointed enough to drill beneath the surface. Read more

Ben Walters, Time Out: This adaptation of Marks's autobiography -- a student staple throughout the land -- struggles to capture the sheer breadth of his life. Read more

Joe Leydon, Variety: Mildly amusing but overly discursive. Read more

Benjamin Mercer, Village Voice: Though told here with appealing drollness, Marks's story makes an odd vessel for the filmmakers' casually advanced legalization arguments, what with its mischief making on the grandest scale possible. Read more

Mark Jenkins, Washington Post: The writer-director tells the story with verve and small-budget ingenuity. Read more