Layer Cake is set in London England where a cool,calm collected man (Daniel Craig) is a middle man for drug trafficking but after making a million pounds he intends to retire. Drug lord Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) has one last job for him his cohorts, Jimmy wants him to negotiate a deal between himself & the Duke (Jamie Foreman) who has just stolen a million ecstasy tablets from Serbian war criminal drug dealers from Amsterdam & find a potential buyer as well. He does as he is told but soon finds himself caught in the middle of an international drugs war as the Serbs want their ecstasy back, big time gangster Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon) wants the drugs for himself while it seems that our man has been caught right in the middle as everyone holds him personally responsible...
Also annoyingly known as L4yer Cake this British gangster flick (yes, another one) was produced & directed by Matthew Vaughn, it was written by J.J. Conolly based on his novel of the same name & maybe I was expecting another Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) or Snatch (2000) but I thought Layer cake was a dull & lifeless crime thriller that plodded along making me more bored by the second. For a start there are too many character's who are too similar, men in suits who swear a lot & act tough for instance, cocky young drug dealers & ruthless bosses & the fact that the main character played by Daniel Craig is so flat & personality free, I mean he isn't even given a name let alone any sort of background. Then there's the fractured plot which I found confusing as things would suddenly happen or change & there would be no time to take it in, it just seems to go from one situation or one set of character's far too quickly & it just ended up feeling like one big unfocused mess. Layer cake has to be one of the longest 101 minute films I have ever sat through. Unlike other notable British gangster flicks there's no comedy here, the over the top eccentric character's are nowhere to be seen & there's very little incident. I also want to point out that the plot revolves around drug dealers & I just can't agree with glamorising this activity, I know it's a film but it stresses the point that dealing in drugs is an easy way to make loads of money & it never shows the consequences of what drugs do. Besides being boring it just left a bad taste in my mouth.
Apparently Guy Ritchie was set to direct Layer Cake but he dropped out & it really could have done with his humorous & sarcastic dialogue, his pacing & his style of plot twist's rather than the lifeless dull affair we end up with. Layer cake is a lot, lot more restrained than either of Ritchie's films & boy does it tell, not a whole lot happens considering how long Layer Cake lasts. The title Layer Cake refers to the multi layered structure of the crime world, most people probably won't know that so that point will be lost on them. The film has it's stylish moments but too many long dull stretches, I saw this on telly after walking past a dirt cheap second hand Blu-ray in a shop for months & I ma very glad I didn't spend any money on it. As far as I am concerned it stay on that shelf gathering dust.
With a fairly modest $4,000,000 (Daniel Craig probably earns more than that per film now) this looks good & has nice production values but I doubt I will remember much about it by the end of the week. The acting is alright but restrained & Daniel Craig is surprisingly flat & lifeless & just doesn't seem interested.
Layer Cake is a film that I really disliked, the average user rating on the IMDb would suggest that I am in the minority but that's OK with me just so long as I don't have to watch Layer Cake again. A big disappointment & contrary to the IMDb user rating no-one I know who has seen it likes it either.
Also annoyingly known as L4yer Cake this British gangster flick (yes, another one) was produced & directed by Matthew Vaughn, it was written by J.J. Conolly based on his novel of the same name & maybe I was expecting another Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) or Snatch (2000) but I thought Layer cake was a dull & lifeless crime thriller that plodded along making me more bored by the second. For a start there are too many character's who are too similar, men in suits who swear a lot & act tough for instance, cocky young drug dealers & ruthless bosses & the fact that the main character played by Daniel Craig is so flat & personality free, I mean he isn't even given a name let alone any sort of background. Then there's the fractured plot which I found confusing as things would suddenly happen or change & there would be no time to take it in, it just seems to go from one situation or one set of character's far too quickly & it just ended up feeling like one big unfocused mess. Layer cake has to be one of the longest 101 minute films I have ever sat through. Unlike other notable British gangster flicks there's no comedy here, the over the top eccentric character's are nowhere to be seen & there's very little incident. I also want to point out that the plot revolves around drug dealers & I just can't agree with glamorising this activity, I know it's a film but it stresses the point that dealing in drugs is an easy way to make loads of money & it never shows the consequences of what drugs do. Besides being boring it just left a bad taste in my mouth.
Apparently Guy Ritchie was set to direct Layer Cake but he dropped out & it really could have done with his humorous & sarcastic dialogue, his pacing & his style of plot twist's rather than the lifeless dull affair we end up with. Layer cake is a lot, lot more restrained than either of Ritchie's films & boy does it tell, not a whole lot happens considering how long Layer Cake lasts. The title Layer Cake refers to the multi layered structure of the crime world, most people probably won't know that so that point will be lost on them. The film has it's stylish moments but too many long dull stretches, I saw this on telly after walking past a dirt cheap second hand Blu-ray in a shop for months & I ma very glad I didn't spend any money on it. As far as I am concerned it stay on that shelf gathering dust.
With a fairly modest $4,000,000 (Daniel Craig probably earns more than that per film now) this looks good & has nice production values but I doubt I will remember much about it by the end of the week. The acting is alright but restrained & Daniel Craig is surprisingly flat & lifeless & just doesn't seem interested.
Layer Cake is a film that I really disliked, the average user rating on the IMDb would suggest that I am in the minority but that's OK with me just so long as I don't have to watch Layer Cake again. A big disappointment & contrary to the IMDb user rating no-one I know who has seen it likes it either.