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 | Layer Cake Director: Matthew Vaughn Rating: MA Now showing  Next James Bond candidate Daniel Craig plays a nameless cool, high-flying drug wheeler-dealer who, according to the film's opening narration, no longer needs to continue working: he's built up enough of a nest-egg to retire. Or so he thinks. After realising that his superannuation fund isn't working as well as he believed, Craig's world begins to crumble. He has no choice but to take on one last, very dubious deal. And so begins a cris-crossing, convoluted and very complicated film that's not only smooth and edge of your seat suspenseful, but also sadistically funny, brazenly entertaining, graphically violent and chock-full of colourful characters in that limey crime film tradition. 'XXXX' (as Craig is credited) is told by his boss Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) to find the missing daughter of one of Jimmy's old friends, wealthy tycoon Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon). This is not usually part of XXXX's job description and so he's immediately suspicion and alarmed. At the same time, he's also asked to consolidate a deal to buy a million ecstasy pills from The Duke (Jaime Forman), a brash, loud-mouthed, flashy type that he'd normally try to avoid. Neither of these two tasks makes sense to XXXX; and, on top of all this, he also becomes target number one in a Serbian vendetta. XXXX constantly has to evaluate and re-evaluate his allies and enemies: betrayal, deceit and the occasional murder mean he's constantly unsure of who's on whose side, and is dragged back into the world he so desires to leave. The complex structure of the milieu of 'Layer Cake' is actually a metaphor for the pecking order in corporate sectors, criminal or otherwise. Behind the rugged boys-club exterior of all involved, there's a delicate balance of trust and honour that proves fragile in the constant battle for the upper hand. Debutant director Matthew Vaughn has done a sterling job at holding this all together and remaining focused on the story's overall point, without holding back on the obligatory expletives and guns. While the immediate benchmarks to measure this by would be 'Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels' and its American remake, 'Snatch', in the end I found 'Layer Cake' to be much more mature and stylish and therefore a more disturbing affair than many of its predecessors in this genre. Sure, we've seen this story being told before, but I reckon this one really takes the cake.  | |
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