benkitching13 7.5 out of 10 for clarification. Layer Cake is most appropriately summarised as a stylish, though occasionally tedious thriller with a commendable lead performance. The style of the film is evident throughout in it's score (which is utilised to great extent in some scenes), in addition to the superb editing and cinematography. Daniel Craig is highly accomplished in the lead role as the intelligent, professional and anonymous drug dealer, who delivers a considered monologue throughout. Craig is bolstered by a generally impressive though somewhat derivative supporting cast. Additionally, the film benefits from spouts of humour and multiple plot twists. However, at times, Layer Cake succumbs to tedious drama.

seymourblack-1 A London drug dealer who regards himself as a businessman rather than a criminal, operates by a set of rules that he believes will enable him to retire shortly with the huge amount of money that he's accumulated. With a letting agency as his front and an accountant who systematically launders his money, he's convinced that he knows exactly what he's doing and says that "life's so good, I can taste it in my spit". In reality, however, because he's oblivious to the true levels of treachery that routinely permeate every layer of the criminal hierarchy within which he works; he's heading for a fall.The dealer (Daniel Craig) whose name is never mentioned in the movie and is listed in the credits as XXXX unwittingly reaches a pivotal moment in his career when his boss Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham), calls him to a luncheon meeting and gives him two jobs to carry out. One is to find the missing drug-addicted daughter of his long-time associate, Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon) and the other is to acquire and sell the one million ecstasy pills that are currently in the hands of a low-level gangster called "The Duke" (Jamie Foreman). It's from this point onwards that everything starts to unravel for XXXX as he discovers that the ecstasy pills had been stolen from a gang of Serbians who've sent a ruthless hit-man called Dragan (Dragan Micanovic) to recover their property and also to eliminate anyone who's involved. This puts XXXX in immediate danger because the Serbians had been given the impression by The Duke that he had been working for XXXX.After he's surprisingly kidnapped by Eddie Temple's men, XXXX learns that, as well as having had an ulterior motive for wanting Eddie's daughter to be found, Jimmy was also involved in a major act of betrayal against his own criminal fraternity and a plan to relieve XXXX of all of the money he'd made as a drug dealer. Further revelations, betrayals and an act of revenge then follow before the full extent of XXXX's downfall suddenly becomes apparent."Layer Cake" is a complicated, character-heavy crime drama that's full of double-crosses, clever twists and dry humour. It's based on the novel of the same name by J.J. Connolly and in adapting it for the big screen, he's retained so many of the story's minor characters and subplots that the end-result is more involved than it needs to be and as a result, fails to consistently convey to its audience what is important and what isn't. First-time director Matthew Vaughn does a good job of injecting clarity, vitality and stylishness into the whole undertaking and its large cast of talented actors also do well with Daniel Craig, Michael Gambon and Kenneth Cranham providing the most powerful and memorable performances. Overall, the movie is gritty, violent and lacks any likable characters but its soundtrack is well above average with especially good use being made of tracks by The Cult, The Rolling Stones and Duran Duran.

sir-mauri Layer Cake is a British crime-drama about a successful cocaine dealer who must do two difficult tasks for his boss before he can retire. Layer Cake showed a lot of harsh realities about being in the crime world and how Daniel Craig's character tries so hard to complete his tasks so he can retire knowing that trying to drop out of the crime world is a really hard thing to do. Layer Cake was an excellent movie and one of the Daniel Craig's best movies before he was Bond. Great directorial debut of Matthew Vaughn, his style has grown in 4 films since his recent film was X-Men First Class. I wonder how I managed to miss this one when it came out. It may just have been an oversight as the market was filled with cockney gangster films back then and I wasn't that impressed with them.

Leofwine_draca I'm a big fan of Guy Ritchie's British gangster films LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS and, especially, SNATCH, so when I saw this Daniel Craig-starrer was directed by the guy who produced those two films, I thought I'd check it out. Sadly, LAYER CAKE is a dull and derivative piece of work that shows what happens when film-makers churn out familiar, predictable movies in a bid to cash-in on the perceived current popularity of the genre. It happened with Japanese long-haired ghost girl movies, and it happened with British gangster movies. LAYER CAKE contains absolutely nothing we haven't seen before and it's a case of style over substance. Ritchie's films provide a liberal inspiration, as does Tarantino's PULP FICTION, but the difference is that LAYER CAKE has no heart and the style ain't that great, either.Things begin on a bad foot with some truly atrocious comedy from some 'chav'-type gangsters and after a while the story begins for real. Basically, it involves Daniel Craig and his criminal buddies getting involved with stolen drugs and rival gangsters, and it all gets very complicated and not very interesting. This might well have been the reason Craig became Bond, because his acting's great and the best thing in this film, but his character is unlikeable and doesn't get a chance to be developed enough. Elsewhere, the supporting actors seem to be just going through the ropes: Michael Gambon and Kenneth Cranham as older generation gangsters, Colm Meaney as yet ANOTHER shouty-sweary-sweaty guy (basically THE SAME as the character he played in CON AIR), Sienna Miller as a dumb bimbo and others besides.Granted, the film does have a few stand-out moments of genuine goodness; the sniper scene is one of these. There are some other memorable moments, usually the violent bits, a couple involving hot tea and an iron, but these are mere minutes in what seems like a very long film. The 'twist' ending is ripped straight out of CARLITO'S WAY and really was the final insult for this viewer. LAYER CAKE is a dumb, wannabe film and fans of the genre should stick with SNATCH.