Layer Cake (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Layer Cake | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Matthew Vaughn |
| Produced by | Adam Bohling Stephen Marks David Reid Matthew Vaughn |
| Written by | Novel & Screenplay: J. J. Connolly |
| Starring | Daniel Craig Sienna Miller Colm Meaney Kenneth Cranham George Harris Jamie Foreman Michael Gambon |
| Music by | Lisa Gerrard Ilan Eshkeri |
| Cinematography | Ben Davis |
| Editing by | John Harris |
| Distributed by | Sony Pictures Classics |
| Release date(s) | 2004 |
| Running time | 105 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | 4,000,000 GBP |
| IMDb profile | |
Layer Cake (also spelled L4YER CAK3) is a 2004 British gangster thriller, directed by Matthew Vaughn. It is based on a novel of the same name by J. J. Connolly.
The title refers to the human social strata, especially in the British crime underworld, as well as the numerous plot layers in the film. "The Layer Cake is a metaphor for different levels of British society, whether it's the crime world or anything else", says director Matthew Vaughn. "The movie’s about showing how drugs are everywhere and it doesn’t matter who or where you are, you’re only one person away from drugs, scoring drugs or being involved with criminals. There's a speech at the end of the film where Temple uses Layer Cake as a metaphor for life and how you go up and up and up from one layer of the cake and to the next."
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The film centers around an unnamed cocaine dealer in the center of London played by Daniel Craig (known in the credits as XXXX). Craig's character has established a successful business buying, cutting and selling cocaine by using intelligence and self control to avoid the largesses and gangster behaviors associated with the business. Now having made his fortune through hard work and great care, he plans to retire from the drug industry for good.
However, XXXX's boss, Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) sends him to track down the teenage daughter (Nathalie Lunghi) of his associate, Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon), who has fled a rehabilitation center with her drug addicted boyfriend. In reality, XXXX is being sent to kidnap the daughter in an attempt to force Temple to retrieve £13 million Price had invested in a mine operation near Timbuktu. However, as a Communist coup takes place in the country their investment becomes worthless and Price informs Temple he had invested most of his money in the venture. Temple's incredulous reaction makes Price believe he has been manipulated, and he plans to use Temples daughter as leverage to force Temple to get his money back. Price also orders the protagonist to broker and organize the purchase and distribution of 1 million ecstasy tablets from a flashy gangster named The Duke. The fact they had been stolen from a gang of Serbian war criminals feared throughout the criminal community (and left alive after the heist) is not mentioned at first. Price believes that either Temple's skilled mercenaries or a Serbian hitman connected to the gang will see the unnamed protagonist killed one way or another, and perhaps the return of his lost money.
More trouble ensues for the lead character when he finds out who Price really works for; XXXX's associate, Morty (George Harris) brutally retaliates against a former associate in a filled restaurant; part of the Duke's gang mysteriously disappears, and the ruthless Temple involves himself in the already bungled ecstasy deal.
In the last scene of the film, having escaped the drug world and its danger, XXXX is in the act of celebrating his escape when he is suddenly and unexpectedly shot on the front steps of the Country Club by the Duke's dim-witted nephew for stealing his girlfriend, Tammy (Sienna Miller), and the protagonist's fate is left ambiguous.
[edit] Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Daniel Craig | XXXX |
| Colm Meaney | Gene McGuire |
| George Harris | Morty |
| Michael Gambon | Eddie Temple |
| Kenneth Cranham | James Lionel Price |
| Jamie Foreman | The Duke |
| Sally Hawkins | Slasher |
| Sienna Miller | Tammy |
| Tom Hardy | Clarkie |
| Nathalie Lunghi | Charlotte Spencer-Temple |
| Dexter Fletcher | Cody |
| Steve John Shepherd | Tiptoes |
| Tamer Hassan | Terry |
| Burn Gorman | Gazza |
| Ben Whishaw | Sidney |
| Jason Flemyng | Crazy Larry |
| Steve Storey | Hoist Driver |
| Marcel Iureş | Slavo |
[edit] Reception
Layer Cake received mostly positive reviews, with an 80% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
[edit] Differences between book and film
- The organisation in Amsterdam from whom Duke and his crew steal the ecstasy tablets are Neo-Nazi Germans in the novel, however in the film they are wanted Serbian war criminals.
- In the novel, Morty serves 5 years in prison, while in the film, he serves 10.
- The surname of Eddie Temple is Ryder in the novel.
- In the novel Jimmy Price loses his money to a Chechen arms dealing sting, in the film he loses his investment in African mineral deposits to a communist coup d'etat.
[edit] Sequel
J. J. Connolly and Matthew Vaughn have both given interviews stating that Connolly is currently[when?] writing a sequel to Layer Cake. Vaughn said, "The concept of the novel is that he moves to the Caribbean" and "[he and Morty] take over the Caribbean drug business." [1] Daniel Craig stated in an interview that if the new novel is adapted into a film, he'll only be interested in reprising his role if Vaughn directs.
[edit] External links
- Official Site
- Layer Cake at the Internet Movie Database
- BBC interview with Matthew Vaughn
- Reviews via Rotten Tomatoes
|
||||||||
