Some movies just make you feel dumb--if, that is, you aren't giving them every ounce of your concentration. "Layer Cake" is one of those that seems logical and straightforward enough, but then there are those darned layers. And you'd better be paying attention, or that cake will collapse quicker than a soufflé.
"Layer Cake" has the same hip, superslick style as "Pulp Fiction"--but with a silencer on, when it comes to the violence. And when the nameless hero (a mid-level London gangster who's called "XXXX" in the end credits) does the voiceover, you can't help but recall "Goodfellas," with it's similar narrative of a "connected" guy whose sweet life suddenly starts to go sour.
In case you're thinking about getting into the business, early in the film the narrator shares his rules for survival: Always work in a small team, keep a very low profile, only deal with people you know, never be too greedy, know and respect your enemies, avoid loud attention-seeking wannabe gangsters, stay away from the anti-user, pay your supplier promptly, have a good front, and have a plan and stick to it. "So," he concludes, "barring any f---ups, I'm leaving it all behind." Getting out while he can.
But anyone who's ever watched a gangster movie--no matter what the location or nationality--knows that retirement isn't exactly as easy as turning in your gun. And those rules by which XXXX lived fly immediately out the window when his boss, Jimmy (Kenneth Graham), gives him a killer of an assignment. It seems that one of their "associates," Duke (Jamie Foreman) acted on his own to heist a million-hit cache of Ecstasy from the Serbian mob, and XXXX (Daniel Craig) has to try to "handle" it--though what Jimmy means by that is never really clear. One presumes its to get rid of Duke and somehow sell that Ecstasy without getting whacked by the Serbs. Oh, and while he's at it, could he also try to locate the missing daughter of kingpin Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon)?
Watching Craig here, you can certainly see why the Bond franchise thought he might be a good choice. Though he's got a harder edge than any of the others who played Bond before him, there's something not just cool, but cold about him as he glides from scene to scene. Only when he's grabbed by thugs and dangled over a building's edge do we see that his reaction is as realistically normal as the next guy (who's dangled perilously over a building's edge), whereas Mr. Bond would merely register a bit of a squirm on his countenance.
Filmed in Amsterdam and in the studios in England, "Layer Cake" follows XXXX and his cohort, the bald, black baddie Morty (George Harris) as they try to sort things out, encountering mid-level gangsters like Gene (Colm Meaney) and trigger-happy beginners like Slasher (Sally Hawkins) in the process. Through most of it, those steely-blue eyes of XXXX's narrow to penetrate the souls of others, and to seal off any entrance to his own soul. He's got the Bond poker face down to a pat hand. Craig and Gambon are the frosting on this cake, while everyone else's performances are layered beneath them. I just wish that I could keep it all straight. It's the kind of film that you want to watch over and over again, just to get a handle on every detail of the plot.
Director Matthew Vaughn gives us a film that celebrates London as a city as much as it glorifies the drug trade there. But for all it's metaphorical obviousness (I mean, as if we couldn't figure it out, Temple even says, "Welcome to the Layer Cake," and explains the whole layers of gangster society thing), and for all its confusion, "Layer Cake" doesn't have the complexity of "Traffic" or the same sort of camera innovations to create a parallel visual complexity. It's a stylish and polished film, with 360-degree shots, aerial shots, and interesting up-angle shots (one of which is shot through a glass coffee table), but a fairly straightforward one.
"Layer Cake" has the same hip, superslick style as "Pulp Fiction"--but with a silencer on, when it comes to the violence. And when the nameless hero (a mid-level London gangster who's called "XXXX" in the end credits) does the voiceover, you can't help but recall "Goodfellas," with it's similar narrative of a "connected" guy whose sweet life suddenly starts to go sour.
In case you're thinking about getting into the business, early in the film the narrator shares his rules for survival: Always work in a small team, keep a very low profile, only deal with people you know, never be too greedy, know and respect your enemies, avoid loud attention-seeking wannabe gangsters, stay away from the anti-user, pay your supplier promptly, have a good front, and have a plan and stick to it. "So," he concludes, "barring any f---ups, I'm leaving it all behind." Getting out while he can.
But anyone who's ever watched a gangster movie--no matter what the location or nationality--knows that retirement isn't exactly as easy as turning in your gun. And those rules by which XXXX lived fly immediately out the window when his boss, Jimmy (Kenneth Graham), gives him a killer of an assignment. It seems that one of their "associates," Duke (Jamie Foreman) acted on his own to heist a million-hit cache of Ecstasy from the Serbian mob, and XXXX (Daniel Craig) has to try to "handle" it--though what Jimmy means by that is never really clear. One presumes its to get rid of Duke and somehow sell that Ecstasy without getting whacked by the Serbs. Oh, and while he's at it, could he also try to locate the missing daughter of kingpin Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon)?
Watching Craig here, you can certainly see why the Bond franchise thought he might be a good choice. Though he's got a harder edge than any of the others who played Bond before him, there's something not just cool, but cold about him as he glides from scene to scene. Only when he's grabbed by thugs and dangled over a building's edge do we see that his reaction is as realistically normal as the next guy (who's dangled perilously over a building's edge), whereas Mr. Bond would merely register a bit of a squirm on his countenance.
Filmed in Amsterdam and in the studios in England, "Layer Cake" follows XXXX and his cohort, the bald, black baddie Morty (George Harris) as they try to sort things out, encountering mid-level gangsters like Gene (Colm Meaney) and trigger-happy beginners like Slasher (Sally Hawkins) in the process. Through most of it, those steely-blue eyes of XXXX's narrow to penetrate the souls of others, and to seal off any entrance to his own soul. He's got the Bond poker face down to a pat hand. Craig and Gambon are the frosting on this cake, while everyone else's performances are layered beneath them. I just wish that I could keep it all straight. It's the kind of film that you want to watch over and over again, just to get a handle on every detail of the plot.
Director Matthew Vaughn gives us a film that celebrates London as a city as much as it glorifies the drug trade there. But for all it's metaphorical obviousness (I mean, as if we couldn't figure it out, Temple even says, "Welcome to the Layer Cake," and explains the whole layers of gangster society thing), and for all its confusion, "Layer Cake" doesn't have the complexity of "Traffic" or the same sort of camera innovations to create a parallel visual complexity. It's a stylish and polished film, with 360-degree shots, aerial shots, and interesting up-angle shots (one of which is shot through a glass coffee table), but a fairly straightforward one.
Some movies just make you feel dumb--if, that is, you aren't giving them every ounce of your concentration. "Layer Cake" is one of those that seems logical and straightforward enough, but then there are those darned layers. And you'd better be paying attention, or that cake will collapse quicker than a soufflé.
"Layer Cake" has the same hip, superslick style as "Pulp Fiction"--but with a silencer on, when it comes to the violence. And when the nameless hero (a mid-level London gangster who's called "XXXX" in the end credits) does the voiceover, you can't help but recall "Goodfellas," with it's similar narrative of a "connected" guy whose sweet life suddenly starts to go sour.
In case you're thinking about getting into the business, early in the film the narrator shares his rules for survival: Always work in a small team, keep a very low profile, only deal with people you know, never be too greedy, know and respect your enemies, avoid loud attention-seeking wannabe gangsters, stay away from the anti-user, pay your supplier promptly, have a good front, and have a plan and stick to it. "So," he concludes, "barring any f---ups, I'm leaving it all behind." Getting out while he can.
But anyone who's ever watched a gangster movie--no matter what the location or nationality--knows that retirement isn't exactly as easy as turning in your gun. And those rules by which XXXX lived fly immediately out the window when his boss, Jimmy (Kenneth Graham), gives him a killer of an assignment. It seems that one of their "associates," Duke (Jamie Foreman) acted on his own to heist a million-hit cache of Ecstasy from the Serbian mob, and XXXX (Daniel Craig) has to try to "handle" it--though what Jimmy means by that is never really clear. One presumes its to get rid of Duke and somehow sell that Ecstasy without getting whacked by the Serbs. Oh, and while he's at it, could he also try to locate the missing daughter of kingpin Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon)?
Watching Craig here, you can certainly see why the Bond franchise thought he might be a good choice. Though he's got a harder edge than any of the others who played Bond before him, there's something not just cool, but cold about him as he glides from scene to scene. Only when he's grabbed by thugs and dangled over a building's edge do we see that his reaction is as realistically normal as the next guy (who's dangled perilously over a building's edge), whereas Mr. Bond would merely register a bit of a squirm on his countenance.
Filmed in Amsterdam and in the studios in England, "Layer Cake" follows XXXX and his cohort, the bald, black baddie Morty (George Harris) as they try to sort things out, encountering mid-level gangsters like Gene (Colm Meaney) and trigger-happy beginners like Slasher (Sally Hawkins) in the process. Through most of it, those steely-blue eyes of XXXX's narrow to penetrate the souls of others, and to seal off any entrance to his own soul. He's got the Bond poker face down to a pat hand. Craig and Gambon are the frosting on this cake, while everyone else's performances are layered beneath them. I just wish that I could keep it all straight. It's the kind of film that you want to watch over and over again, just to get a handle on every detail of the plot.
Director Matthew Vaughn gives us a film that celebrates London as a city as much as it glorifies the drug trade there. But for all it's metaphorical obviousness (I mean, as if we couldn't figure it out, Temple even says, "Welcome to the Layer Cake," and explains the whole layers of gangster society thing), and for all its confusion, "Layer Cake" doesn't have the complexity of "Traffic" or the same sort of camera innovations to create a parallel visual complexity. It's a stylish and polished film, with 360-degree shots, aerial shots, and interesting up-angle shots (one of which is shot through a glass coffee table), but a fairly straightforward one.
"Layer Cake" has the same hip, superslick style as "Pulp Fiction"--but with a silencer on, when it comes to the violence. And when the nameless hero (a mid-level London gangster who's called "XXXX" in the end credits) does the voiceover, you can't help but recall "Goodfellas," with it's similar narrative of a "connected" guy whose sweet life suddenly starts to go sour.
In case you're thinking about getting into the business, early in the film the narrator shares his rules for survival: Always work in a small team, keep a very low profile, only deal with people you know, never be too greedy, know and respect your enemies, avoid loud attention-seeking wannabe gangsters, stay away from the anti-user, pay your supplier promptly, have a good front, and have a plan and stick to it. "So," he concludes, "barring any f---ups, I'm leaving it all behind." Getting out while he can.
But anyone who's ever watched a gangster movie--no matter what the location or nationality--knows that retirement isn't exactly as easy as turning in your gun. And those rules by which XXXX lived fly immediately out the window when his boss, Jimmy (Kenneth Graham), gives him a killer of an assignment. It seems that one of their "associates," Duke (Jamie Foreman) acted on his own to heist a million-hit cache of Ecstasy from the Serbian mob, and XXXX (Daniel Craig) has to try to "handle" it--though what Jimmy means by that is never really clear. One presumes its to get rid of Duke and somehow sell that Ecstasy without getting whacked by the Serbs. Oh, and while he's at it, could he also try to locate the missing daughter of kingpin Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon)?
Watching Craig here, you can certainly see why the Bond franchise thought he might be a good choice. Though he's got a harder edge than any of the others who played Bond before him, there's something not just cool, but cold about him as he glides from scene to scene. Only when he's grabbed by thugs and dangled over a building's edge do we see that his reaction is as realistically normal as the next guy (who's dangled perilously over a building's edge), whereas Mr. Bond would merely register a bit of a squirm on his countenance.
Filmed in Amsterdam and in the studios in England, "Layer Cake" follows XXXX and his cohort, the bald, black baddie Morty (George Harris) as they try to sort things out, encountering mid-level gangsters like Gene (Colm Meaney) and trigger-happy beginners like Slasher (Sally Hawkins) in the process. Through most of it, those steely-blue eyes of XXXX's narrow to penetrate the souls of others, and to seal off any entrance to his own soul. He's got the Bond poker face down to a pat hand. Craig and Gambon are the frosting on this cake, while everyone else's performances are layered beneath them. I just wish that I could keep it all straight. It's the kind of film that you want to watch over and over again, just to get a handle on every detail of the plot.
Director Matthew Vaughn gives us a film that celebrates London as a city as much as it glorifies the drug trade there. But for all it's metaphorical obviousness (I mean, as if we couldn't figure it out, Temple even says, "Welcome to the Layer Cake," and explains the whole layers of gangster society thing), and for all its confusion, "Layer Cake" doesn't have the complexity of "Traffic" or the same sort of camera innovations to create a parallel visual complexity. It's a stylish and polished film, with 360-degree shots, aerial shots, and interesting up-angle shots (one of which is shot through a glass coffee table), but a fairly straightforward one.
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