re:mote voices

Title: Layer Cake

Cast: Daniel Craig, Kenneth Cranham, Michael Gambon, Jamie Foreman

Director: Matthew Vaughn

So you did the crime, you did your time, and you saw the light. Robbing security trucks is old news, drugs is where the money is to be made. So you get a graduate industrial chemist, a hard man to do the hard work, and the business contacts. And you work at it. Years pass, you launder the money, you have a million coming to fruition. You are going to take the money and walk away. But life isn’t like that. As a wise man once said, shit happens.

This is Layer Cake, a screenplay by JJ Connelly, based on his debut novel, his nameless protagonist/narrator finds out the hard way just how quickly shit happens. Caught in the middle of amateurs stealing drugs from international traffickers and killers and the top dogs trying to maintain an income that the narrator has provided them with over the years. Cue violence, too many cooks, and as escalating situation. The result is a mostly stylistic crime drama, which at points cranks up the visual gimmicks, without really maintaining the momentum that creates.

Layer Cake is promoted on the back of films like Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. The director of Layer Cake having stepped into the role after being the producer on those previous numbers, their director Guy Ritchie having stepped away from this film at the last minute in order to pursue his own venture. While Lock Stock and Snatch held little appeal for me, there is something about the style and feel of Layer Cake which did get me into see it. With that it is probably fair to say that it is an idea to see Layer Cake before it generates too much hype, already being sold to the same crowd as those previous films, while also playing up a sex angle which isn’t as present as the promoters would have you believe. On the whole Layer Cake is smartly done, with much of its appeal coming from its style and the strong performance by leading man Daniel Craig.