Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

I was certainly expecting more from this film and I was slightly disappointed to be honest. The story seemed interesting at the beginning, but as it branches out into multiple threads it loses focus and becomes more convoluted. Snatch is a much better example of managing multiple story threads without it becoming too confusing.However, the acting is excellent, particularly from Daniel Craig, Colm Meaney and George Harris. Michael Gambon also does a good job in the short amount of screen time he has. The direction is also superb, with their being some innovative shots and cinematography.The romance between XXXX and Tammy seemed to be a bit forced into the narrative for me, but it does lead to a quite poignant ending when XXXX is shot by Tammy's boyfriend Sidney, as it hammers home the message that there was no way he would be able to leave the drugs business, and that all his efforts were for nothing.Overall this is a fairly average British crime film, but not quite to the standard of previous examples.

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.

Layer cake is one of the old school gangster movies of which everybody is fond of.Daniel Craig's brilliant acting and Mike Gambon's steely tone surely strikes a nerve amongst the audience.Its a a type of movie you have to re-watch to understand it better.I myself had watch last 30 minutes twice again to get what really was happening.Lastly the teaser left at the very last of the film before Daniel Craig was shot "My name?If you knew that you would be as clever as me." Owing to fan theory surely it must be an anagram of the very movie name..."Layer Cake"which gives XXXX's name as Carey Lake or Lake Carey.But remember when all fan theories of the TV series Sherlock failed as to how Moriarty faked his death and then we came to know he is truly dead in season 4...maybe in this case too we are all wrongBut we all come to know about this when the layer cake sequel is released if ever.

Forget - if you will - that Guy Richie had anything to do with this near- cult British gangster film. It is at once intelligent, witty, gloriously filmed and framed, and at the same time infuriatingly complex and annoying.Daniel Craig, in his last film before his Bond days, is very clear about his role in life. He's a businessman, who happens to deal in cocaine. He doesn't consider himself to be a gangster, and as his commentary at the start of the film reminds us: "stay as far away from the end user as possible". He hates guns too, and believes himself to be the gentleman baddie.So does Jimmy Price. Jimmy's empire is built, much like a pyramid scheme, on getting other people to do the dirty work while for all to see, he is a paragon of larger-than-life businessmen done good. He just has one or two little jobs for Daniel to do though, before (unbeknown to Jimmy) our hero plans to retire. Yes this is a "one last job before I retire" sort of film.Firstly, there's the drug-addled daughter of his old school friend, Eddie Temple (played with gloriously latent menace by Michael Gambon). She's gone missing from a rehab clinic, and Craig is called up to find her, at whatever cost.Added to Craig's "to do" list is the little matter of one million ecstacy tablets that have found their way from the clutches of a ruthless Eastern European gang into the possession of "The Duke", a loud-mouth "throwback" accompanied by his motley crew of droogs, not least a very very unpleasant girlfriend who would be kicked out of the Jeremy Kyle Show.Having spent the first 45 minutes establishing who is who, what is what and so on, we settle down to witness a descent into ever decreasing circles of cross, double-cross, and nobody really knowing who to trust; Craig (who is never named in the film) remains calm throughout proceedings while - to quote The Duke - things go "a little bit turbo'.It would spoil the ending too much to say more. Michael Gambon, suffice to say, has been watching events unfold from a far, as has Serbian killer "Dragon" who has a perchant for chopping off people's heads and doing some very very nasty torture using an electric iron.Sienna Miller acts as a tagged-on romantic sub-plot, but as pointless sub- plots go, she's certainly lovely to watch.This film is not easy going. The ending, which I shall not divulge, crackles with the "this is what will happen if you mess with me" from Craig vibe. It is rumoured the Barbara Brockly chose Craig to be the next Bond on the strength of his last words in the film and the rest, as they say, is history.