Movie Review: Layer Cake (2004) English

Directed By: Matthew Vaughn
Starring: Daniel Craig, George Hardy and others
Running Time: 105 Min
Overall Rating: 8.0/10

Layer Cake is a 2004 British gangster thriller, directed by Matthew Vaughn. It is based on a novel of the same name by J. J. Connolly. Starring Daniel Craig in the lead role as a drug dealer, this film provides many nuances on the British Underground system.

"The Layer Cake is a metaphor for different levels of British society, whether it's the crime world or anything else", says director Matthew Vaughn. "The movie’s about showing how drugs are everywhere and it doesn’t matter who or where you are, you’re only one person away from drugs, scoring drugs or being involved with criminals. There's a speech at the end of the film where Temple uses Layer Cake as a metaphor for life and how you go up and up and up from one layer of the cake and to the next rising above the shit from the previous layer.

Though the primary plot revolves on how to be an effective middleman, many sub plots are woven in to make the layer cake extremely enjoyable. Daniel portrays brilliantly the multiple facets and emotions when one is forced to move from being a drug dealer to being unable to retire from it all to being a killer.

+
Daniel Craig, Good Plot and subplots, Acting, Direction and Style

-
Suspense, Some open ends