Sleek, well dressed and polite, XXXX (Daniel Craig) looks like any other businessman. Treating cocaine and ecstasy like ordinary commodities, he has made a fortune for himself without ever really getting his hands dirty or losing his anonymity. Now he's looking at retiring while he's still young enough to enjoy his ill-gotten gains. He reckons a couple of days should see him clear of the business. That's the plan, anyway. But like all the best laid plans it goes somewhat astray.
Special Agent Matti
Layer cake is a genre film: good-hearted, small-time criminal gets caught up in big-time crime and has to play the big game to survive. It's very Lock, stock and two smoking barrels (ie it's good British fare). The twists come thick and fast, the violence leaves blood on the screen, the laughs are from the belly.
Daniel Craig is sympathetic as the drug-dealing and unnamed anti-hero and his narration doesn't even annoy. The rest of the cast are either unknowns (the new kids on the block) or hard-bitten faces you recognise from every other British film ever made (the master criminals); it gives an interesting blend of something old, something new.
Layer cake is a good, hard crime thriller that you'll come back to again and again. Enjoy it.
MA 15+ (Medium level violence, drug references, medium level sex scene, medium level coarse language)
105 minutes (1:45 hours)
Film: 28 July 2005