Layer Cake

mechanic in the British drug trade finds himself caught in the middle of some dangerous circumstances in this crime thriller. XXXX (Daniel Craig) is a nameless go-between in the British mob who buys drugs from underground wholesalers and them sells them to street dealers, keeping the system flowing and making a tidy profit in the process. XXXX is looking forward to getting out of the game, and has displayed both smarts and caution in how he's handled his business, but before his overseer Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) will let him go, he has a couple of favors that need to be done. First, Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon) is a mob boss whose daughter has gotten hooked on hard drugs and run away from home; Jimmy needs XXXX to find them girl and bring her to him before Eddie's men can get hold of her. Second, Dragan (Dragan Micanovic) is a Ecstasy wholesaler who has had a large shipment stolen by Duke (Jamie Foreman); Jimmy wants XXXX to get the Ecstasy back to Dragan, but Duke isn't eager to sell and Dragan is becoming impatient. Between these two matters, XXXX isn't so sure he'll get out of the business alive, especially after he finds himself falling for Duke's nephew's girlfriend, Tammy (Sienna Miller). Layer Cake marked the directorial debut for Matthew Vaughn, best known as a producer for Guy Ritchie's lad-centric crime movies. — Mark Deming

AMG Review:
The recipe for Matthew Vaughn's Layer Cake is simple: start with a few generous spoonfuls of Guy Ritchie, add a pinch of Martin Scorsese, and sprinkle in a few plot points from Carlito's Way. The result is a pretty yummy confection, even if it doesn't revolutionize the dessert world. Having produced each of Ritchie's films, Vaughn has taken with him the intricate plotting, the unintelligible accents, and the surplus of characters, most of whom have cookie-cutter mobster nicknames. He's left behind Ritchie's fondness for absurdist comedy, as Layer Cake proceeds in a mostly straightforward manner, at least in terms of its set pieces. The narrative is another matter — J.J. Connolly's script gives birth to a new subplot about every five pages, and it becomes nearly impossible to sort out who is with whom, and whether it's a double- or triple-cross they're perpetrating. This disorganization leaves certain characters out in the cold, such as Sienna Miller's promising femme fatale, who has no function. As with a Ritchie film, it may be wisest to treat Layer Cake largely as eye candy. Vaughn's camera glides through the action like a guided tour of Britain's drug underworld, narrated by the nameless protagonist (Daniel Craig) and seen through a crisp, nearly colorized filter. It's mostly free from the frenetic trickery of Ritchie's films, save for one virtuoso sequence in which Vaughn films a vicious beating from the perspective of the victim, the camera somersaulting with each blow, and Duran Duran's "Ordinary World" sputtering in and out of clarity on the soundtrack. Vaughn can marry insubstantial pop songs with hip iconography like the most successful of his predecessors. What Vaughn can't claim is a totally distinctive vision — the kind that might prompt young filmmakers to imitate him, rather than them. — Derek Armstrong