Movie Review

Layer Cake

Here we have another British crime caper drama with guts to spare. Tough men who talk in funny accents (to Americans) duke it out psychologically and physically to determine who will be top dog in the drug game...or diamond game. In the case of Layer Cake, it is the drug world.

Daniel Craig plays a guy who doesn't have a name. Is that supposed to make his character more interesting? He is a mid-level cocaine "salesman" in London. And guess what? He wants to finish one last big job and get out of the business (never heard of that one in a crime movie). He and his crew stumble upon a plot involving one million pills of ecstasy. It is a complicated plot that takes the rest of the movie to reveal and talk about.

There is quite a bit too much talking in this movie. I understand that that's the British way, but this is supposed to be an energetic and flashy gangster movie. What starts out with all the promising hallmarks of a sordid mafia escapade ends up as a flat dialogue-fest with nothing you can really sink your teeth into. And there is an added "layer" of difficulty with all this chit-chat because the actors speak in such thick English accents; I'm sorry, but as an American it is very hard to understand sometimes. It is not as impenetrable as a movie like Sexy Beast, which I thought was intolerable due to the characters' manner of speech, but Layer Cake is not as easy to understand as Snatch (except maybe for the Brad Pitt character in that one).

All this chatter might be compelling if the script's twists could shoulder their end of the load. The plot just loses all steam and focus by the halfway point, if not before. This movie is a huge bundle of needless complication; I like it when you can understand what's going on at all times in a film, even if the story is layered and complex. I didn't know what exactly was happening for a large portion of Layer Cake, and I didn't much appreciate that. Whether it's filled by car chases or conversations, giant voids at the hearts of movies are never fun.

For a movie with a plot that centers on illicit narcotics, there isn't that much drug usage or even that many shots of actual contraband (save for a decent pile-of-coke scene in the very beginning). The drugs just serve as a device to keep the wheels rolling, rather than directly affecting the characters like in Scarface or Goodfellas. There also is an odd shortage of sex and violence (maybe one or two okay scenes of each). I may be one of the few people actually clamoring for such scandalous things, but I know many people feel just as I do. I mean, sex, drugs, and violence are supposed to be the main staples of a film like this; when they are in short supply, one becomes crotchety.

I can respect think pieces and noble efforts, but this is just not the movie for that. People don't want to watch a film like this just for classically trained Brit thespians or nicely photographed conversations; they want the meat & potatoes of the genre. Layer Cake has all the nutritional value of a sugary dessert.

Scott's Grade: C+

A	15.1%
B	59.2%
C	24.5%
D	1.2%
F	0.0%