"Layer Cake" (2004) - Movie Review

I saw “Layer Cake” two years back and at the first viewing, it is a highly entertaining crime flick with “Guy Ritchie” influences here and there. I was not able to find any depth into the story. I did not get to know the unnamed character played by Daniel Craig. Watching it now, the unknown emotional details of this protagonist is the signature of the film directed by Mathew Vaughn, a frequent collaborator with Ritchie. They gave us the trend setter cult “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch”.

This man with no identity (name per se) is a smooth player. He is a business person whose business just happens to be drugs, as he says. He has played the cards clean till date when the film opens and means everything is going to crumble down. As expected there is one final assignment he got to do for his boss Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) and things goes haywire. Old revenge, double crossing, mishaps, stupidity and plot intended to twist and turn is spun closed and the tension makes to obey their story telling. And it has a faithful unique mark of tribute to the gangster films and yet does not mimic it but fort in its territory.

As said earlier, almost all details of this character are under the sands. We get the character plainly and solidly in a pure condensed form. His reactions are on the grounds of this business and personally he is nobody. We know he knows the games and we know his thoughts are far from the time. He is the sanest street smart and drug middle man with so much clarity in his business. His skill in swindling marketing with Duke (Jamie Forman) a nerve wreck glittering show man with nothing but turmoil is a talent display of this sharp cleaner. He tells with much sincerity the facts of street sales and yet we know the mockery he is making out of the loud attention seeker. These are the conmen we appreciate over screen and scowl at ourselves when blank shots are pulled on us.

He does not have passion for becoming a gung ho gangster. He honours his line of work and the details of death lists happening around him. It has the personalities accustomed to unique practiced dialogues and attire with immaculate suits and bloody face bruises. We are fancied by these testosterone hallucinations. The same kind which we have seen as a boosted shot of eroticism in violence painting blood along with an existential philosophy in “Fight Club”. “Layer Cake” is not profound in human inner meanderings but an English thriller mastering wit and plot twists native to the director Mathew Vaughn.

Craig’s pre James Bond avatar would have been a trump card for the polished flesh and blood gadget man for “Casino Royale”. His veins sprout through skins when he helplessly begs his mates to believe in the incredible lies and cheats they have been caught late in the film. But all before that, it is how the dirt free man in muddy waters get soaked and drenched in a mess which keeps getting deeper and deeper through the plot. The plot which takes through not alone the astuteness of Craig’s character but his friends, boss and the stupid people who potentially get him into the hole are interesting and funny.

A man playing his part wisely in an ugly business with surgical approach behaves on knee jerk reaction. He is close to his retirement dreams and gets a baby sitting job from his boss and to deal with frenzy man written trouble all over his recent robbed goods. Beyond that his trusted buddy Morty (George Harris) beats an unknown man to pulp and flees while he is left aloof in a situation which pretty much threatens his savings and his life. He overcomes it beyond the odds digging tunnels predicting the people’s reaction which he has used to avoid but this time around depend on facing it.

“Layer Cake” disguises as a dark comic thriller is more than it advertises. The film starts with an argument very much true in the future as the protagonist says and a man sticking to his plan till the last moment. He comes out clean with consequences but we want a good ending in our hearts for him. His world is detached and flourishing for screen writers. Indeed it is prolific for his finances but he pays the ultimate price day in and day out. Even after that his sum of all accounts comes close to death and makes him do the act he advices us not to do if in business of drugs. That is the lesson learned for him that getting out is a dreamer’s term. It might be washed away but the stain continues till the life time haunting and making peace is a process attained by distance and death.