Layer Cake

Layer Cake (***)

It's a few years old now, but I saw Layer Cake this for the first time over the weekend. I remember it getting a fair amount of buzz when it came out in the states, and while I don't think it's a work of absolute genius, its definitely a very fun British crime drama. There's been a whole slew of movies in much the same vein as Layer Cake made in Britain and elsewhere. What the movie is able to do best to set itself apart is establish a compelling and different main character. Said character, who we're never given a name for, is played by Dainel Craig, and you can see a lot of what he would go on to do as Bond in what he does in this movie. Craig's character is involved in the drug trade, and the risks that go along with it, but he's smart enough to know when to hedge his bets. He's put his money with a legitimate accountant, he has a front as a real-estate agent, and he's set a date for his retirement from the drug business that he plans on sticking to.

Like most gangster movies though, retiring is never as easy as it seems ("Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in!"), and we follow the main character as he gets entangled in a deal of ecstasy pills that were stolen from some super-creepy Serbian guys. Craig plays his character with a certain wit and charisma that makes him endearing but--as he did with Bond in Casino Royale--also gives his character more weakness and humanity than we normally expect from protagonists in movies like this. Though he's surrounded by violence, Craig's character (at least initially) deplores guns, and when his life is threatened we're actually allowed to see him worry instead of seeing him simply tossing around a one-liner like "This shit just got real!" and leave to go flip out and kill people.

There are some great supporting characters as well, with some other well-known British actors like Colm Meaney (aka O'Brien from Star Trek) and Michael Gambon. They sort of represent the last generation of criminals, back before drugs were the "in" thing, and bank robbery was the preferred method of obtaining ill-gotten money. Their quips about how it was like in the old days ("when life was as simple as a game of cops and robbers") are funny and strangely poignant at the same time. The movie is kind of frantically directed--it reminds me a lot of Snatch in that way--and initially the quick cuts between scenes can be somewhat distracting, but it mostly works. The surprise ending is, well, genuinely surprising, though I'm not sure how much I like it as an ending, especially after a resolution to the conflict to that point that seems to work maybe a little too perfectly. At any rate, as I said, its a fun British gangster movie and it has more than enough endearing characters and funny exchanges to make up for some of the story's imperfections.