Layer Cake (film)

Layer Cake
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Matthew Vaughn
Produced by	Adam Bohling David Reid Matthew Vaughn
Screenplay by	J. J. Connolly
Based on	Layer Cake by J. J. Connolly
Starring	Daniel Craig Colm Meaney Kenneth Cranham George Harris Jamie Foreman Sienna Miller Michael Gambon
Music by	Lisa Gerrard Ilan Eshkeri
Cinematography	Ben Davis
Edited by	Jon Harris
Production companies	Marv Films
Distributed by	Sony Pictures Classics
Release dates	1 October 2004 (2004-10-01)
Running time	105 minutes[1]
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$6.5 million[2]
Box office	$11.9 million[3]

Layer Cake (also occasionally stylized as L4YER CAKƐ) is a 2004 British crime thriller film directed by Matthew Vaughn, in his directorial debut. The screenplay was adapted by J. J. Connolly from his novel of the same name.

The film was produced by Adam Bohling, David Reid and Matthew Vaughn, with Stephen Marks as executive producer. The title refers to the social strata, especially in the British criminal underworld.

Plot

An unnamed man—appearing in the end credits only as XXXX—is a London underworld figure who has established himself in the cocaine business as one of the city's biggest suppliers, whilst presenting himself as a figure with legal business operations. Considering himself a businessman and a patient person, he leaves the darker aspects of the business to his henchman Morty, who had previously spent 10 years in prison for murder. Once he has earned enough to ensure his long-term financial security, XXXX plans to retire.

Approaching this point, his retirement plans go wrong when his powerful supplier Jimmy Price instructs XXXX to track down Charlie, the teenaged daughter of Price's associate, Eddie Temple, who has fled a rehabilitation centre along with her drug-addicted boyfriend. To track her down, XXXX enlists the help of two con men known as Cody and Tiptoes. To the frustration of XXXX, the boyfriend is found dead and Charlie has apparently been kidnapped, although no ransom has been demanded.

At the same time, Price instructs XXXX to organise the purchase and distribution of one million ecstasy tablets from a low-level gangster styling himself as "The Duke". XXXX does not know the pills had been stolen from a gang of Serbian war criminals based in the Netherlands, and who have been in hiding since the Yugoslav Wars and are now large-scale drug producers.

Meanwhile, XXXX encounters the Duke's nephew Sidney at a bar and becomes attracted to his disillusioned girlfriend Tammy. XXXX tries to broker the sale of the ecstasy pills to Liverpool gangsters Trevor and Shanks, but they refuse, informing him of the drugs' purloined nature and of the fact that the Serbs have sent an assassin, known as Dragan, to find the pills and kill those responsible for their theft. Because the Duke had mentioned XXXX's name to the Serbs beforehand, he, too, is now in danger. Members of the Duke's gang soon start turning up dead and the Duke himself goes missing.

XXXX arranges a tryst with Tammy, but before it can be consummated, he is kidnapped by henchmen of Eddie Temple (the father of Charlie). Temple informs him that Jimmy had lost £13 million in a failed investment in Africa and is now hoping to sell the pills to recoup his losses. He demands instead that XXXX sell the pills to him, and plays him a recording indicating that Jimmy has been a long-term informant for Scotland Yard and intends to betray XXXX to the police as soon as the deal is done, planning to gain clemency from the deal and also take away XXXX's wealth.

A furious XXXX shoots and kills Jimmy at his home, but does so with a gun that Gene, Jimmy's henchman, had used to commit a prior murder, putting both himself and Gene in danger. XXXX then discovers that his accountant, to whom Jimmy had referred him, has embezzled all of his money and disappeared. Gene and Morty, after being given evidence of Jimmy's snitching, acknowledge XXXX as the new acting boss and show him the corpse of the Duke, whom Gene had killed along with Duke's girlfriend, Slasher, when the latter threatened to alert the police about the pills.

To recoup something from the fiasco, XXXX tips the police off about the Duke's hideout, who then conduct a raid. XXXX is intentionally present during the raid to feign purchasing the pills from the Duke's crew, and Dragan, who has been following XXXX, watches the raid from afar as the police confiscate the drugs and as XXXX and Duke's crew escape. Meanwhile, XXXX has arranged for Cody and Tiptoes to con the raiding police unit out of the pills. XXXX delivers the severed head of the Duke to Dragan as a peace offering, who reports back to his Serbian boss that the police have seized the drugs. Cody and Tiptoes return the drugs to XXXX in exchange for a fee. However, when he attempts to sell them to Eddie Temple at the latter's bonded warehouse, Temple's henchmen rob his crew of the drugs at gunpoint. To end XXXX's faux assignment given by Jimmy, Temple reveals that he has put Charlie back into rehab.

To satisfy him, Temple then gives XXXX a "welcome to the layer cake" in the form of a membership to the Stoke Park Country Club of which he is a member and Jimmy was. Expecting betrayal, XXXX successfully arranges for Trevor, Shanks, and young Dizzy to steal the drugs back from Temple's men. The gang assembles for lunch at the Stoke Park Club, honoring XXXX their new boss. However, he demurs, stating his intention to stick to his planned retirement. When leaving the club with Tammy, mentally running through the names of his fellow murdered businessmen, he is shot by a heart-broken Sidney. XXXX collapses bleeding, and the film ends with him twitching on the club's front steps and thinking of his possible imminent death.

Cast

Production

Filming began in June 2003. Queen's Gate Mews, SW7, was used as the filming location for the home of Daniel Craig's character XXXX.^[4]

Soundtrack

The soundtrack from Layer Cake is composed of 14 tracks.

The Rolling Stones song "Gimme Shelter" also features in the film but does not appear on the soundtrack album.

Release

Box office

Critical response

Layer Cake received positive reviews, with an 81% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes with an average of 7.1/10 based on 134 reviews. The critical consensus states that it is "A stylized, electric British crime thriller".^[5] The film has an average score of 73 based on 30 reviews on Metacritic.^[7]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times remarked, "The movie was directed by Matthew Vaughn, who produced Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, and this one works better than those films because it doesn't try so hard to be clever and tries harder to be menacing". Of Craig's performance, he said, "Craig is fascinating here as a criminal who is very smart, and finds that is not an advantage because while you might be able to figure out what another smart person is about to do, dumbos like the men he works for are likely to do anything". He gave the film 3.5/4 stars.

Craig's starring role in the film has been cited as the performance that led to his high-profile casting as James Bond.^[8]

Home media

Layer Cake was released on DVD and VHS in August 23, 2005 and on Blu-ray in 2007. It was also re-released in 2014.

Continuation

Jason Statham's production company is said to have the rights to produce a sequel, entitled Viva La Madness with Statham taking the XXXX role from Craig. On September 17, 2015, it was reported that Viva La Madness will be a TV show for Gaumont International Television.^[9]

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Layer Cake

• Layer Cake at the Internet Movie Database
• Layer Cake at Box Office Mojo
• Layer Cake at Rotten Tomatoes
• Layer Cake at Metacritic
• BBC interview with Matthew Vaughn