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What's the Story, Mornin' Glory?
L4yer Cake
(2004)
XXXX (Daniel Craig) is a high stakes drug dealer dealing mainly in cocaine. Now that life is just about perfect he's decided to get out of the game. His big boss Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) calls him for lunch and asks him a favor. He wants him to find his good friend's daughter who's gotten hooked on cocaine and run away. On top of that XXXX has to settle a deal involving a large amount of ecstasy. XXXX quickly learns that the people who are selling the ecstasy stole it from a man who is wanted for war crimes and other heinous things. Quickly, anyone involved with the stealing of the x turns up dead. Jimmy wants them to find a buyer anyway and he's also pissed off that XXXX has enlisted the help of two guys to find the missing girl. To make things worse, he's a witness to his associate beating an old acquaintance up. If the guy dies he's a witness to a murder and he's either going to jail with him or testifying against him. One thing after another turns the situation from bad to worse. With everyone crossing everyone and all the blame being put on XXXX, will he ever live long enough to retire from his dangerous job?
You Learn Something New Everyday...
 Fcuk will one day own their own line of drugs.
People still fall for the ol' "room service" gag.
Drug dealers don't work weekends.
Zing!
"Are you trying to scare the shit out of me? I mean I fucking hate guns! Although...that one is really pretty. Is that from the second world war?" -XXXX
Survey SAYS...
Boasting to have directed other good movies really sets you up for failure, especially when those other movies are rather epic. I think that for the most part the fact that they advertised L4yer Cake to be like Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch really hurt the movie in the end and the only similar thing they had in common was that it involved crime bosses. I guess that's a decent enough of a connection, but L4yer Cake is not a heist movie, which was mainly what I was expecting. It did have those cool connecting flashbacks where everyone has a part in everyone elses past for one reason or another, but that didn't cover up the fact that this movie was boring. L4yer Cake was a book before it was a movie and I could totally see this being a good book, but it didn't translate well to film. I don't think that it would've been much better if Guy Ritchie had directed either since the directors don't write the story.
The number one thing that bugs me about this movie is that they absolutely in no way explain why the title is spelled with a number four. Like, they have this shady explanation of why the movie is even called “Layer Cake,” but what's up with the 4? The second thing that was bothersome is why XXXX didn't have a name. It didn't actually bother me that much at first because I thought they had said his name at one point, but then they rolled the credits and there was a big XXXX next to his name. It's driving crazy. It's like they were trying to be clever and this movie wasn't clever.
I'll be the first to admit that this movie bored me out of my skull. L4yer Cake is going to be one of those movies that people will feel forced to like because it's made by the guy who directed other flicks deservedly called epic. There were a few interesting scenes that I liked (i.e.: the climax of the film and some of the dialogue exchanged between Gene, Morty, and XXXX), but for the most part it drug along slowly. Everybody is crossing everyone else and it just got annoying after a while. It got to the point where I just didn't care. None of the characters were interesting or awesome in any way. Then there's that pointless blurb about XXXX and Sienna Miller's character. What was that about? They only mention anything about it for a few minutes of the movie. Then there's the ending. Y'know I really hate endings like that. Especially is it's a sub par movie. You go through all that struggle to stay in the movie and then they pull stupid crap like that at the end. This was the most uninteresting crime movie I've ever seen.
On a few side notes however, does William Defoe have a British son? One of the actors in the movie was a spitting image of him when he was younger. It's so weird. I was slightly creeped out, but only because William Defoe is really creepy. Next, is Daniel Craig really going to be the next James Bond? Yeah, he's British, but he's so unattractive and definitely isn't as suave as Sean Connery or Roger Moore. He was a decent actor, but I can't imagine him being an action adventure star. Hmm. Also, I've never been so annoyed by putting a letter mid-word before.
If you're like me and you see a British movie that boasts it's connections to LSATSB and Snatch and you expect a witty heist movie, you'll be disappointed. Perhaps I would've liked it better if I wasn't expecting a witty heist movie, but a boring crime movie. If I wanted to see that I'd just watch Casino or anything by Martin Scorsese for that matter. Luckily this wasn't a three hour epic because I couldn't take much more than an hour and a half. So, if you like scalawags, guys named Kinky, Duran Duran, death by iron, and a lot of double crossing, then this is the flick for you. As for us, we give L4yer Cake:
That Wasn't so Bad Was It?
I was left Feeling: Bored
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