Layer Cake

Fast, convulsive, and densely exciting new British gangster thriller.

The director Vaughn has a flair not merely for action and ambiance but also for character.

There's a proper lived-in believability about Layer Cake's depiction of how the worlds of the rich, the criminal and the criminally rich intersect.

A crime drama in a special class.

There's a lot here to feed crime-fiction enthusiasts.

The result is so intoxicating, it hardly matters that you've heard it all before.

What's abundantly clear is how far this kind of moviemaking has come from any knowledge of real criminal life; it's a geek's ineffectual daydream of mayhem.

From the very first minute, it’s clear that everything here revolves around rhythm. Layer Cake moves with enviable ease, without wasting time on unnecessary explanations or underlining the obvious. The film trusts its story, its tone, and its way of telling it — and it shows. There’s a constant sense of forward motion, as if each scene naturally pushes into the **** British flavor permeates everything: dry irony, sharp dialogue, and that elegant way of portraying the criminal world without over-romanticizing it. It has a lot in common with Guy Ritchie’s cinema, but without the excess fireworks or visual showboating. The style is polished, yes, but always in service of the story, never the other way **** of its greatest strengths is its point of view. The story is told from a cold, almost cynical perspective that fits the overall tone perfectly. There are no grand speeches or forced epic moments — just decisions, consequences, and an internal logic that never breaks. Everything flows with a natural ease that makes even the harsher turns feel believable.Humor appears sparingly and with precision, never turning the film into a comedy. These small touches relieve tension and reinforce the British character of the whole, without ever breaking the atmosphere. That blend of contained violence and sarcasm is a key part of its identity.Overall, Layer Cake is a solid, elegant, and very well-measured thriller. It doesn’t try to reinvent the genre, but it executes it with notable precision. It’s engaging from start to finish, leaves a lasting impression, and proves that when style and control go hand in hand, the result can be both effective and memorable.

Director Matthew Vaughn went to great lengths to make this black crime comedy have a voice of its own and not come across as generic. Here it requires paying close attention to the twists and turns that are well justified. To understand how Daniel Craig got the role of James Bond.

A sleek, stylish, and gritty gangster crime thriller from director Matthew Vaughn, Layer Cake is a pretty damn good film. In a truly charismatic turn, Daniel Craig stars as the nameless protagonist. Looking to get out of the drug business, our hero gets caught between stolen Serbian drugs and the search for a girl strung out on drugs and hanging with bad company. A pretty straight forward crime film, Layer Cake is flawed and a bit messy at times, but has terrific kinetic energy that keeps it going. Layer Cake may not convince me Matthew Vaughn is a very good director (Kingsman can die in a fire), but it is another surprisingly good entry in his filmography. Starring Craig as XXXX, the unnamed gangster, the film's biggest fault is its plot lacks resolution. He is hired to find this girl and the film forgets about her. He begins to have sex with Sienna Miller, but gets pulled out of the room and then it jumps to him leaving a country club with her at the end. Many of the film's plot elements are just skimmed through, names get jumbled up, or events and people are simply forgotten. Vaughn tries to string these together quite loosely and it only slightly works out at times. Fortunately, its energy and action allow you to forget about the plot a bit, but it hurts because then there is very little meat on the film's bones. The characters, regardless of sex, are useless. This is one of the film's biggest problems. While its style is nice, the same cannot be said for a pretty run-of-the-mill script that feels like a rehash of Snatch or Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. The fact that Vaughn was a producer on those films is hardly a surprise considering how similar the style is between this film and those Guy Ritchie films. That said, the poor characterization and lack of plot cohesiveness is hardly too detrimental, it just prevents the film from being better. What is quite detrimental for Layer Cake is its shaky cam. I hate shaky cam. Using shaky cam through a lot of the action scenes, it was annoying and disorienting. Shaky cam is used in one of the most climactic portions of the film and it is a real buzzkill, leaving the sequence with no tension and, in its place, annoyance and a headache. That said, it is an exception as most of the film does not rely on shaky cam, thankfully. Unfortunately, it only makes that one sequence all the more jarring and horrible to watch, as the film has hardly prepared the viewer to take it all in via shaky cam. That said, the film's plot is quite tense and thrilling at times. Even if its characters lack definition, they are quite engaging to watch and provide interest in the film. The complex and always changing plot is more than engaging and leaves the audience guessing throughout. While hardly original, there are enough moving parts that keep you distracted and focused on the intrigue and more engaging bits of the plot, namely the impending arrival of the Serbian mafia threatening XXXX's life. While diversions into his love life are unwelcome and the film can outdo itself at time, the plot - for a run-of-the-mill gangster action thriller - is hardly anything I can complain about. All in all, Layer Cake is a fine film. It is unoffensive and palatable. Well-directed and incredibly stylish, it has its flaws, but it is a largely fun experience that simply lacks any mean or substance. For action junkies or people who like films of this kind, it will more than quench your thirst. For those who like some more meat on their films, Layer Cake may leave you quite cool and under the mistaken belief that there had to be more to this film than was shown. Fortunately, even for the latter group, the cool and charismatic Daniel Craig more than saves the film and helps to contribute to a film, while disposable, is more than entertaining and is great popcorn entertainment.

Disappointed by Guy Ritchie's projects after Lock Stock and Snatch, I've turned to the work of early collaborator Matthew Vaughn in search of a similar fix. After about thirty minutes with this, though, the truth of the matter became painfully clear: Vaughn needs Ritchie just as much as Ritchie needs Vaughn. Layer Cake is an unpolished picture, all twist and no character; aka the polar opposite of Ritchie's contemporary caper flick, RocknRolla. Layer Cake's heart is in the right place, with a setup so familiar it may as well have come straight from the same brainstorming sessions that produced the duo's earlier collaborations. But try as it might, this film just can't grant its players the kind of mettle that was so tangible in those preceding pictures. They're lifeless husks, sprinting toward a violent end; going through the motions but lacking the conviction to make their words feel authentic. And there are no less than three dozen of them, many of whom are on screen for less then ten minutes, playing major off-camera roles amidst the plots twists and turns. I had a hard enough time remembering everybody's names, let alone keeping track of their ever-shifting allegiances. Convoluted, conflicted and confusing, this is a cake that needed a bit more time in the oven. Or more frosting... everybody loves frosting.

even drug dealers don't work weekends.. Layer Cake Its fast paced gripping screenplay that enfolds in each phase as it ages on screen with witty humor and complex yet amusing characters blends in perfectly creating a brilliant gangsta rap environment that is although palpable but still fails to connect with the audience. J.J. Connelly's keen adaptation (and it's short runtime) helps survive this feature where even Mathew Vaughn; the director, is supporting thoroughly and is convincing too. Daniel Craig holds tightly on to its part but seems a bit distracted to carry the whole feature on its shoulder. Layer Cake fails on creating the impact of character's emotion and the drama that come along with on screen which ultimately fails to communicate with the viewers and justify them with enough reason to convince them.