I’ve always had
mixed feelings about drugs. On the one hand, I don’t really care about what
people do with their body as long as it doesn’t endanger anybody else. On the
other hand, on the very rare occasions someone has offered drugs I never went
the extra mile and actually tried it. If the main character from Matthew
Vaughn’s crime thriller Layer Cake
(2004) had his way, I could one day make that decision by walking into a
pharmacy and legally buying whatever I want. Until that day, we will still get
brilliant films such as this one about criminals in the drug business trying to
make a living as though it was just another day at the office. Welcome to the
layer cake son.
This was an
interesting film to watch at the time it came out given its director and star.
Matthew Vaughn was known as the executive producer of the Guy Ritchie films Snatch and Lock, Stock and Tow Smoking Barrels so expectations were for
another gangster comedy featuring characters with exocentric names like Big
Chris and Brick Top. This was also two years before Casino Royale so Daniel Craig as the nameless drug dealer was
better known for supporting roles in Tomb
Raider and Road to Perdition.
Another sign times have changed: I first saw this movie while in college in
Quebec City after renting it from the video store. Now I live in Alberta and
Blockbuster has officially gone out of business. The drug trade on the other
hand is alive and kicking and there is talk of a sequel to Layer Cake with Jason Statham taking over from Daniel Craig.
Statham will have
big shoes to fill as Craig’s character immediately grabs you with his
professionalism. In an opening monologue he explicitly says he is not a
gangster and emphasizes the importance of certain rules to survive the drug
business, mainly not making waves and not being greedy. He is so good he never
tells the audience his name, and is identified in the credits only as XXXX.
This nameless dealer has a successful business in London buying and selling
cocaine for supplier Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham). With his associates Gene
(Colm Meaney) and Morty (George Harris) he avoids the violent aspect of the
business and focuses on making enough money to retire.
It is characters
just out of Guy Ritchie’s handbook that end up giving him a major headache. At
Price’s instruction, he must organize the distribution of a major load of
ecstasy pills courtesy of low-level gangster The Duke (Jamie Foreman). What
XXXX learns only too late is that the risk-taking Duke stole the pills from
Serbian war criminals. The Serbians saw The Duke’s face during the heist and by
association put XXXX in their crosshairs, or specifically in the crosshairs of
an assassin called Dragan who collects people’s heads.
Two other story
strands further complicate matters. The dealer is tasked by Price to track down
the daughter of his associate Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon). Also, after
meeting The Duke’s nephew at a bar he becomes attracted to his girlfriend Tammy
(Sienna Miller) who is equally interested in meeting him in a hotel room. This
leads to a great sequence where the dealer almost gets to take a respite from
the criminal dealings by sleeping with Tammy only to be taken to an impromptu
meeting with Temple on the hotel roof.
You know you have
a great gangster movie when the plot becomes so convoluted even the main
character doesn’t know what is going on. During the meeting with Temple, so
many twists and turns are revealed the unnamed professional has to ask twice
for clarification.
This is a truly
fascinating criminal. If drug dealing was legal he could retire and give
classes to aspiring young dealers, yet he has his flaws. Hanging around with a
woman who already has a boyfriend is not a good idea, and it is an even worse
idea to tell an assassin to fuck off over the phone when you realize he doesn’t
have your address. In a slightly hypocritical moment, XXXX reminds his friend
he hates guns only to start playing with one because he finds it pretty.
Although not as
funny as Guy Ritchie’s films, Layer Cake
is another great British gangster film, filled with low-level criminals who
hang out at pubs while the people at the top of the cake go to elite country
clubs. Of course the universal thing to remember is that once you arrive at the
top, you have nowhere to go but down.
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