L4yer Cake
Layer Cake a Retirement Plan
Directed : Matthew Vaughn
Writing credits : J.J. Connolly
Genre: Thriller / Crime / Action
Cast:
Daniel Craig.....XXXX
Tom Hardy .... Clarkie
Jamie Foreman .... Duke
Sally Hawkins .... Slasher
Burn Gorman .... Gazza
George Harris .... Morty
Tamer Hassan .... Terry
Colm Meaney .... Gene
Marcel Iures .... Slavo
Francis Magee .... Paul the Boatman
Dimitri Andreas .... Angelo
Kenneth Cranham .... Jimmy Price
Garry Tubbs .... Brian
Nathalie Lunghi .... Charlie
Marvin Benoit .... Kinky (as Marvyn Benoit)
Review
The Layer Cake is the ladder. When you are young you keep getting **** in your face. When you are older, you get some **** in your face but not as much as before. Through experience you learn that the smell of **** is not good for you until you get so high up in the cake that on its top layer you don’t even know what is **** anymore.
When I say **** I mean crossing and double crossings; and this film has plenty of it.
XXXX (Daniel Craig) is out of jail after being locked up. In his early days he was involved in the Marijuana and LSD biz. As he narrates it in the beginning of the film, explaining why investing in the top class drugs is good for retirement, he has a perspective that one day drugs will be legalized and sold as the common products in the pharmacies. At this point the camera strolls along brightly lit shelves of FCUK Marijuana, FCUK ecstasy, FCUK cocaine…..etc until they become all normal products of today’s chemists.
Contrasting to Lock, Stock and Snatch, this film is particularly focused on XXXX’s life. It does give an insight into the other character’s life but it’s either a shallow one or as I’m thinking its down into The Man With No Name.
Although his plans seem to go well, that is avoiding an inconspicuous life, holding a regular job and always paying cash up front he gets drawn to a meeting with boss Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) who has a job for him: find and bring back the daughter of Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon) another crime boss. He has also the task to obtain a copious amount of Ecstasy, stolen by Duke’s (Jaime Foreman) wannabe gang.
As events unfold the tasks complicate themselves (who would have thought of that!) a stern warning from Temple who plays a recording of Price mentioning who is expendable, the murder of Jimmy Price (some excellent camera work with the zoom and music), a Serbian killer unleashed onto XXXX, a plan to recover pills and some good old fashioned violence.
The shot in which Morty gets his back in the café is pure VENGEANCE. It reminded me of Big Chris slamming the car door on dog’s head. For those who haven’t seen it, its putting the camera in position as if it’s the victim face. Makes me wonder what they use; they surely don’t smash up a camera for that scene.
I’ve been told that the book is far more better parts are missing from it. Like the part it explains into every detail how they killed him and what they used (using almost a whole chapter) only to find out at the end that they were talking about a dog!
So does XXXX retire? Oh yes he does retire