Saturday, September 12, 2009

Layer Cake (2004)


LAYER CAKE
DIRECTED BY: MATTHEW VAUGHN
WRITTEN BY: J.J. CONNOLLY
OVERALL SCORE: 6.00/10


Well liked, drug middle man (Daniel Craig) on the verge of retirement gets in over his head after being asked by his boss to complete two tasks: 1) Complete a drug deal with a local thug for 1,000,000 ecstasy pills, which have been stolen from Serbian drug lords and 2) Find the daughter of a local crime lord Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon).

Layer Cake is your by the numbers British gangster film of the last 10 years. You have a well like middle man looking to get out before its too late, who quickly gets in over his head, and must now hatch an over the top creative plan in order to get out of his predicament. So by the numbers in fact it's almost a little depressing, but that doesn't really take away from the overall fun of the film.

I'm a big fan of the British Gangster film genre so I'm always a bit lenient towards those films (other examples include Gangster No .1 - super creepy Paul Bettany , and The Long Good Friday - the godfather of the genre). Craig and crew are a great feast of fun, general goofballs and regular gangsters blended nicely as Craig seemingly does his best Bond audition. Unfortunately though Layer Cake doesn't offer anything really new, and so I struggle to overly praise it for retreading well tread territory.


Good casting, writing, and directing make up for a lack of originality in this enjoyable British gangster film

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