SoftInloveRox Horrible, fascist and poorly acted
SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.
Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.
Vultural ~ Biopic of Welsh hash smuggler, Howard Marks. Lightweight, by the numbers approach as young Marks goes to Oxford, straight as an arrow, discovers reefer, begins the transformation. Next thing, he's collaborating with IRA patriots to smuggle Afghan hash. Money for lifestyle or guns. Several funny anecdotal scenes, yet nowhere does this dig for substance. Big deals in the US skitter by, swimming pool styling in Mallorca added to show - I suppose - how boring the clean life was. Some of the cinematography intrigues as they have characters drive or walk in front of obvious rear projection of 60s or 70s exteriors. Too long at two hours, and still seemed shallow. Rhys Myers (as Howard) distracted by reminding me of singer Liam Gallagher (Oasis).
qfanatiq 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.
katana1 Having watched this tonight i think i can offer a fair review , its a joke to indicate the film doesn't have grounding within the book , there just too alike for words , however the book contains long winded s of activity that are tedious and boring , thankfully these sections were omitted from the film , good news then ? well no , sadly also key points in Howard marks life are also not in the film , the result has sections that make no sense whatsoever to the layman , Howard appeared to move around without reason and know people without explanation , the consequences of others actions are also omitted leaving a disted and slightly sinister film , there is humour but its not of the lol sort , knowing the film was shot over just 2 months then i think it shows , Howard marks has led a life so rich and varied and yet it simply wasn't portrayed in this film to its fullest , it leaves you with an empty feeling in that the film felt like soup when it could so easily have been steak , Ifans could not have done a better job and the only lightweight in the cast would be Chloe sevigney who didn't have much to say and didn't display a ion in the role , over all the film IMO is worth of a 6.5/10
waynesjohn It is with tedious inevitability that we are dragged like school children in a gallery through the (ostensibly quite interesting) life of Howard Marks. I felt like I was stoned just watching it. Time seemed to have have completely stopped functioning. Simultaneously I could see exactly what what going to happen next, whilst obtaining a massive sense of deja-vu from what had gone before. I then went to the fridge and ate everything I could find in it and began staring at stuff in my sitting room for ages and ages, mainly to avoid looking at the screen. Nothing to see here, nothing new to say. Not worth renting unless you are still impressed by a bit of grass because you're a first year Geography student from Kettering.
