Layer Cake [Blu-ray]

This movie is nicely paced, and well acted. The soundtrack is very well done and complements the action in the movie very well. Daniel Craig, as the unamed hero (xxxx), brings us a believable character who is in over his head, mostly due to circumstances out of his control. The supporting cast is also well chosen, from Colm Meaney as the experienced right hand man, to Michael Gambon as the "puppetmaster" pulling everyones' strings. Even though her role fits the movie as it needs to, as a dude, I think many would agree that more Sienna Miller would be a good thing. Anyhow, if you liked previous British gangster offerings then you'l love this one. And if you're new the genre, then I highly suggest this movie.

"Layer Cake" was slightly entertaining but fell flat for me. I still have to give credit to film director Matthew Vaughn for his first feature film. He made a name for himself producing the crime-comedy classics "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" and "Snatch". Vaughn abandons the cheeky and comedic nature of those two films and attempts to make a serious crime film. The results are decidedly uneven, as the movie is a stylish but hollow outing.

In here we have XXX (Daniel Craig) who is a man who wants to get out of the game when he reaches the height of his success. He finds forces that he can not control pulling him towards the life is trying to leave. He solves his problem and feels like he has won when suddenly there is one last surprise. Matthew Vaughn guides the film in a cool, professional manner but it lacks the needed energy. This film lacks the vitality, humor and whiz-bang camera work of the aforementioned Guy Ritchie crime flicks. It also lacks the character development and drama to work convincingly as a straight-faced crime thriller. The problem is that XXXX as presented here simply isn't an interesting protagonist. Make him likable or make him detestable, but don't make him bland and anonymous. The side characters, with the notable exception of the commanding Eddie Temple played by Michael Gambon, are similarly underdeveloped.

All this is particularly disappointing given that J.J. Connolly himself adapted his novel for the screen. I read this novel a while back and thought it was a great piece of pulp writing. Not only is the nameless narrator a distinct and dynamic character, he is surrounded by other well-defined characters, and the story includes heavy doses of humor and great intrigue and plot twists. Director Matthew Vaughn stated that many of the funny scenes from Connolly's screenplay were omitted in an apparent attempt to distance himself from "Lock Stock" and "Snatch". Additionally, some of the best characters from the book like Morty and Gene are underdeveloped stock characters in the movie, although both George Harris and Colm Meaney do as good a job as could be expected with what they're given. One issue I have is that if Vaughn was so dead set on making this a serious movie there was plenty of material to draw from in order to do a better job of developing and fleshing out the characters.

"Layer Cake" clocks in at about an hour and forty minutes and easily could have been a half hour longer, which would have provided ample time to build drama and make the characters more interesting. Certainly watch able but by no means remarkable so one slice of cake is more then enough for me.

Boasting a whole litany of reasons for its R rating, Layer Cake delivers a hard-nosed, well-paced, intricate plot revolving around drugs, murder, and the games hoods of the three-piece-suit variety like to play. I must emphasize the word intricate - not being a natural devotee of gangster films, I had a little trouble keeping up with some of the twists - there's a pretty large number of heavies involved here, and some of the guys' thick accents didn't make things any easier for me. Basically, I just sat back and took everything as it came - even if it meant running into D just when I had figured out the connections between A, B, and C. I'm not saying the movie doesn't make sense, though, because it does - it's just more complicated than your typical mindless thriller. It is a nice change, however, to watch a movie that actually encourages the act of thinking on the part of the viewer.

I'll get in trouble if I try to describe too much of the plot. You've got this nameless dude (Daniel Craig), who's sort of upper middle class in the whole fancy gangster regime, who has no choice but to finally get his hands dirty on what he intends to be his last job. First, he's got to find the girl of one of his boss's associates, and second, he's got to arrange for the sale of a cool million pops of Ecstasy. Unfortunately, those drugs are in the hands of a big-mouthed flunkie calling himself the Duke, and he stole them from some tough Serbian joes who just aren't going to take that kind of thing lying down. Things just don't go according to plan from the start, especially when our unnamed protagonist's own associates are liable to go off half-cocked at any given moment, but the whole mess is made even more complicated when another slimy fatcat joins the fun. All of these people are connected, some going way back, but I would need several diagrams and about a half hour to explain all that. All you need to know is that our anti-hero finds himself in a real bind, stuck between the drugs he can't get his hands on and one of Europe's most dangerous hitmen - and with friends like this fellow has, he really doesn't need any enemies.

It's the ultimate game of survival for our protagonist, as he'll have to outwit, outplay, and outlast all of the other players in the game. You have to sort of like the guy, just because everyone else is slimier than he is. There's a girl in the mix, too, of course, but it's violence rather than nudity that wins this film its R rating. All of these guys play for keeps, and it's inevitable that the weak and stupid get offed. I would have liked to have seen more blood (as head shots really should be messier than they are here), but I certainly can't complain about the level of violence on display in Layer Cake. The whole thing is a cool, sleek production with a darn good soundtrack (including the obligatory Gimme Shelter), a challenging storyline, and impressive performances by all concerned (with Michael Gambon, as you might expect, standing head and shoulders above the rest). There's even a surprise or two thrown in just for kicks.