Layer Cake – United Kingdom – 2004 – Crime, Thriller, Drama
Directed by: Matthew Vaughn
Written by: J.J. Connolly
Main Players: Daniel Craig; Sienna Miller; Tom Hardy; Michael Gambon; Colm Meaney; George Harris; Kenneth Cranham; Jamie Foreman; Burn Gorman; Sally Hawkins; Ben Wishaw

Layer Cake is an absolutely excellent twisty crime thriller with a pre-James Bond Daniel Craig as the main character, who is focused on getting his final few narcotic deals done and pocketing his millions while retiring from the drug game. While he supplies large quantities of illicit substances, he doesn’t use them himself, and has used his self-discipline to save up his funds in order to retire early, despite a few nice purchases and good lifestyle.
However… a good money maker getting out of the game does not sit well with the higher ups. They wrestle with the idea of letting him go, as their pockets will most certainly take a hit. The bosses decide to give their star dealer two tasks to complete before he fades away into seclusion.
The jobs include finding a missing runaway daughter of his direct boss Jimmy’s (Cranham) associates, and the second is to supervise a large drug deal acting as broker for a million ecstasy pills for sale from a lower-level thug named the Duke (Foreman). Neither situation winds up being exactly as anticipated, and the plot explodes into a game of double-crosses and life and death for all those involved. Balancing all the players and succeeding with his missions will be a challenge, however our hero moves steadily forward with his goal of escaping this life of crime.
Matthew Vaughn masterfully pulls of the many threads of this movie, and was blessed with an excellent screenplay written by the author of the book that the movie is based on. The high-stakes tension is balanced out by a smart crime drama, with many complex characters and realistic performances by the stellar cast. This was Vaughn’s first movie as director, and cemented him in my mind as a force to be reckoned with. He has continued his career with continues works of high-quality.
This movie remains one of the better crime dramas since the year 2000, and should not be missed.
See This If You Liked:
The Gentlemen; Goodfellas; Sexy Beast; Snatch; Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; RocknRolla; Lucky Number Slevin; Carlito’s Way; Go; American Gangster; The Departed; Scarface; The Long Good Friday; The Outfit
Score:
9.0