Layer Cake

This movie is very much a product of its time, and while its enjoyable, it doesn't quite stand out from similar movies of that era. Layer Cake is an entertaining British crime noir movie from the makers of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. There's a distinctive style to turn-of-the-century crime movies like these -- for instance: cynical voiceovers, foul-mouthed henchmen with distinctive nicknames, criminal bosses who make their points by bringing up the behavior of some animal in nature or a tactical gambit in chess -- and Layer Cake is very much a part of that style and sensibility. Therein lies the problem. Even if the story is entertaining on its own terms, with plenty of action, double-crosses, and plot twists, there's still the lingering feeling that this has all been done before.

As the cool and professional lead character known only as "XXXX," Daniel Craig brings a suave style that seems to make it inevitable that he would soon be James Bond. He's the smart and even-keeled drug dealer surrounded by stooges and psychos. Again, this is all to be expected. There's a "love interest" that seems a little too shoehorned in, like the filmmakers realized that there were only two female characters in the whole thing, and they're both relatively minor. It's a story where style sometimes gets in the way of substance when there's no reason, because the story is fine on its own terms.