Today’s quick review: Layer Cake. Daniel Craig stars as a cocaine dealer whose plans for retirement are interrupted by two last requests from his overbearing boss, Jimmy Price. The first request involves a shipment of ecstasy that a wannabe criminal named Duke has managed to get his hands on. Craig’s attempts to buy the pills are delayed by Duke’s overestimation of the pills’ value, then are sent into chaos by the interference of Dragan, the agent of the pills’ rightful owners. The second request involves the disappearance of the daughter of Eddie Temple, one of Price’s friends. Craig is tasked with finding the wayward girl, but his investigations paint a different picture than that given to him by Price. Surrounded by danger and still hoping to make it out of the game alive, Craig must use all of his cunning to pull himself clear of the mess he has found himself in.
Layer Cake is an excellent crime drama with a complicated plot, nuanced characters, and a touch of gallows humor. Matthew Vaughn’s direction is clean and capable, and his previous work producing Guy Ritchie’s films shows in the construction of the plot and the characters. Much like Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Layer Cake is a crime film with a complicated plot and multiple factions set in London. Unlike those movies, Layer Cake is not explicitly a comedy, and the humor that does come up is more a product of the characters than the genre. The structure of Layer Cake also differs slightly from the Guy Ritchie movies in that Daniel Craig’s character is the glue that holds the movie together. Unlike the round robin format of the Ritchie movies, most of the factions’ key interactions in Layer Cake occur through Craig, and his attempts to deal with each of them in turn are the chief drama of the film.
The complicated plot can be a barrier to enjoying Layer Cake, but the movie stands up well to multiple viewings. The two subplots are each intricate operations for Craig, one the sale of stolen drugs that are still being pursued by their owners, the other a winding missing persons case where Craig has not been given all the information. Between these two plots and the initial setup for the movie, the cast quickly becomes enormous: Craig and his band of accomplices, Jimmy Price and his right-hand man Gene, Duke and his gang of incompetents, Duke’s nephew and his nephew’s girlfriend, Eddie Temple and his men, Craig’s potential buyers for the ecstasy, Dragan, and more. The payoff for tracking all these factions and their interactions is a tense and well-crafted tale of negotiation, quick thinking, and betrayal.
Daniel Craig’s character in Layer Cake is a truly fascinating one. He treats his job as a drug dealer with the caution and foresight it deserves. He understands that getting drawn in too far will make it impossible for him to leave, so he has a fixed amount of money to save before he retires. He takes care never to get his hands dirty, and he keeps an ex-con on staff to handle the dangerous parts of the job for him. Yet cleverness and planning are not the same as power, and he finds himself drawn into the schemes of more powerful men simply because he lacks the power to walk away. His role as a middleman makes enemies for him on all sides when events do not go according to plan, and he has to dive in deeper than ever to get himself out.
Layer Cake is a clever, tense crime drama with interesting characters and an elaborate plot. Watch it when you’re in the mood for a crime movie you can sink your teeth into. Skip it if you’re looking for something light or easy to follow. 7.4 out of 10 on IMDB.