Layer Cake

Like Pulp Fiction, Layer Cake’s title hints at the irregular path the film takes to tell its tale. It follows an honorable crook, which we know only as XXXX (Daniel Craig), who specializes in trafficking cocaine. XXXX’s strategy is to never get involved directly with the criminal element, surrounding himself with other honorable criminals who in turn conduct themselves professionally. It’s all a very neat arrangement on the surface, and XXXX thinks he’s got the system beat. He plans to retire and disappear from the business. WARNING: As we eat this cake, there’s bound to be some juicy spoilers inside.

Peel back a layer… and it turns out that XXXX actually has a boss, Jimmy Price (Kenneth Craham). He demands XXXX personally track down Charlie, the daughter of Price’s fellow crime boss Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon, an evil version of Dumbeldore!). This violates XXXX’s rule of never getting personally involved, but he has no choice.

Peel back a layer…and Price also wants XXXX to organize the distribution of “super ecstasy” tablets from The Duke (Jamie Foreman). Except that the drugs were actually stolen from a Serbian gang, who is intent on tracking them down and murdering everyone involved.

Peel back a layer…and we discover that Price is quite vindictive. He wants XXXX to actually kidnap Charlie in a twisted revenge plot against Temple. It seems Price doesn’t like the idea that XXXX thinks he can retire and wants him dead – if Temple’s men don’t kill him, drug dealers certainly will.

Peel back a layer…and we finally get to the best part of the cake. Nobody is innocent. The professional associates have all committed their own heinous crimes for petty reasons: clubbing snitches to bloody pulps, killing people they dislike, and hiding corpses in freezers. This awful truth requires XXXX to get his hands dirty and he does so in the most thuggish fashion.

The visual direction in Layer Cake is superb, using Matthew Vaughn’s trademark whiplash style that he perfected in Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. It makes what could be a standard drug dealing tale much more interesting. Although the accents are hard to follow at times, the acting is top notch. XXXX is a complex character that gives Craig an opportunity to experience extreme violence, utter defeat, passionate lust, and a host of other emotions beyond the reach of the Bond films.

Although Layer Cake narrative can be circuitous, stick with it. There’s one more layer at the end of the movie, a surprise twist that shows we were looking at the wrong cake all along.