Layer Cake (2004)

Matthew Vaughn  (Director of Stardust & Kick-Ass) made an impressive Directorial debut with Daniel Craig in the lead for the first time in his career in Layer Cake, a British movie.Craig, portrays a successful cocaine dealer at the top of his game, and he's planning to get out while he is ahead. His boss has one last assignment though, to find the missing daughter of his old pal. Caught up in a major ecstasy deal, a brutal Serbian gang and everyone trying to double cross each other, Craig has go against his own rules and outwit the lot of them.
The movie packs on the machismo and revels in the outlaw's contempt for the "straight" world without ever losing track of the menace and danger of the outlaw way of life. The plot is full of twists and turns and may take more than one viewing to take in, which is good for movie fans who like their films "chewy".
Layer Cake runs a fairly brisk hour and forty some odd minutes. It's well paced and has great narration. The lead character played by Daniel Craig (aka the next/future James Bond) is interesting as sort of someone obviously greedy but smart enough to know he's in the wrong business. There's an excellent mixture of fear in his character's actions/dialogue which is well placed earning believability.The supporting cast, on the whole English produce polished snappy dialogue with cool, collected energy. The editing is fast paced, but thankfully the director has chosen a fairly linear storyline.
Layer Cake is based on a novel by J.J. Connolly, who wrote the screenplay for the movie.  Originally Guy Ritchie was due direct but he had to put out because of scheduling conflicts. This was a blessing really because we all know that Ritchie would have just made Layer Cake a comical mockery fair. What Vaughan did was he played the material as straight as possible, keeping comedy to a minimum and a made an good example of a British Gangster film. Vaughan shows that he could handle the material and do some stylist directing trick like a pro, fitting in with the film.

My Rating 8/10