Release Date:
05/13/2005
Layer Cake offers sound financial advice for the UK's underworld, where early retirement is less about 401k's and more about AK-47s. Our slick, nameless protagonist (Daniel Craig, often mentioned as the next James Bond) has spent his life of crime building a fortune under the radar and wants out while he's still ahead. But when he tries to leave the guns and dope behind, he's caught between dueling drug lords who shoot his retirement plan to piecesliterally. With a winding plot full of side characters and flashbacks, the story can be harder to understand than a drunken Irishman, but first-time director Matthew Vaughn (producer Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch) uses a flashy, frenetic style to hold Cake together until its branching storylines congeal. Craig is almost likeable as the cocky middleman who deals himself in way over his head, while scene-stealing supporting turns by Colm Meaney, George Harris, and Sienna Miller keep all of the tangential subplots moving at the same delirious pace. As double-crosses mount, it's about who can best negotiate mountains of pills, hooligans, and crumpetsjust like our last trip to England!