Starring: Daniel Craig, Tom Hardy and Sienna Miller
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Rated: MA15+
MATTHEW Vaughn was the producer of the tongue-in-cheek gangster films, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch.
The anticipation was that Layer Cake would be a similar knockabout gangster actioner with some razzle-dazzle stylistic touches.
No, on all counts.
Rather, it is a smooth and well crafted production with a script that has its satiric moments but is ultimately a rather serious show.
Daniel Craig immediately introduces us to himself. He is the self-made drug dealer, a man about town, who is ambitious for the fine things of life, has a cover as an estate agent, the completely modern amoral man who has made his pile and is about to leave the business prosperously.
He seems to be offering the handbook for the successful, respectable criminal. And we tend to believe him.
But, life is not like that, especially among British gangsters. The crime world is a layer cake and you had better remember which layer you belong to.
There are the local bosses, nouveau riche types who bring their working class manners and violence to their new place in society. Kenneth Cranham is expert at playing this kind of role and is very persuasive here.
There are the lower class idiots who presume that they belong to higher levels, do deals, act precipitately and violently, get everyone entangled in their mess and are quickly dead. Jamie Foreman portrays one of these.
Then there are the local equivalents of the consigliore who are in the background, do a quiet killing or two, act as brokers in drug deals and who live in unobtrusive comfort. Colm Meaney portrays one of these.
At the top are the successfully ruthless who outwit everyone else, no matter layer they come from, and survive. And this is Michael Gambon.
Put it all together, plus some emotional complications which play havoc with plans, and you have Layer Cake.
