... His directorial debut came in the form of last years Layer Cake. The film itself boasted a whole host of British acting talent but instantly doubt was raised as to whether Vaughn could make anything to compete with Ritchie’s debut movie. I never actually got to see Layer Cake at the cinema ... Read review
As its title suggests,Layer Cakeis a crime thriller that cuts into several levels of its ... more
treacherous criminal underworld. The title is actually one character's definition of the drug-trade hierarchy, but it's also an apt metaphor for the separate layer...
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As its title suggests,Layer Cakeis a crime thriller that cuts into several levels of its ... more
treacherous criminal underworld. The title is actually one character's definition of the drug-trade hierarchy, but it's also an apt metaphor for the separate layer...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
From the producer of Snatch, Matthew Vaughn makes his directorial debut in the stylish ... more
crime thriller Layer Cake. Based upon J.J. Connolly's London crime novel, 'Layer Cake' is about a successful cocaine dealer (Daniel Craig) who has earned a respected...
A successful drug dealer is just about to retire from the industry when he finds that his ... more
ill-gotten gains begin dwindling as his legacy crumbles around him. Based on J.J. Connelly's London crime novel of the same name the producer of 'Lock Stock And...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
From the producer of Snatch, Matthew Vaughn makes his directorial debut in the stylish ... more
crime thriller Layer Cake. Based upon J.J. Connolly's London crime novel, 'Layer Cake' is about a successful cocaine dealer (Daniel Craig) who has earned a respected place among England's Mafia elite and plans an early retirement from the business. However big boss Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) hands a tough assignment: find the missing daughter of Jimmy's old pal Edward (Michael Gambon). Complicating matters are millions of pounds worth of Grade A ecstasy, a brutal Serbian gang and a whole series of double crossing.When a seemingly straight-forward drug deal goes awry, he (Craig) has to break his die-hard rules and turn up the heat, not only to outwit the old regime and come out on top, but to save his own skin...
Planning to retire and begin a new life, Mr. X (Daniel Graig, Casino Royale, Munich), a ... more
successful West End drug dealer, has been asked for one last favour: to negotiate the sale of one million hits of Ecstasy. Unfortunately for Mr. X, the pills were stolen from a Serbian drug lord who'll cut off his head if he sells them. And with a London crime czar (Michael Gambon, Open Range, The Insider) promising to retire him permanently if he doesn't, Mr. X may be rightfully concerned about his future. Nothing worth losing his head over.
Layer Cake a metaphor for the many murky layers of the criminal world is set in modern ... more
day London and features smooth-talking and sophisticated drug dealer 'X' whose plan is to quietly bank-roll enough cash to retire young (early). Operating under the polished veneer of a legitimate businessman his mantra is to keep a low profile and run a tight operation until it's time to get out. 'X' sees his opportunity to make a final score when crime boss Jimmy Price asks him to find the wayward daughter of rival crime boss Eddy Ryder. He agrees to take the seemingly innocuous gig as his opportunity to get out of the business with the blessing from Jimmy Price. From the glitz of the London club scene to the underbelly of its criminal world a dark twisted thriller ensues.
Postage & Packaging:£0.00 Availability:3-5 working days
Production Year: 2004 - Drama - Director: Nick Cassavetes - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, 12 years and over - Starring: Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Gena Rowlands
Production Year: 1957 - Drama - Director: Leo McCarey - Original Language: English - Classification: Universal - Starring: Cathleen Nesbitt, Deborah Kerr, Cary Grant, Richard Denning, Neva Patterson, Fortunio Bonanova
Advantages: Excellent cast and crew that makes it a very real movie. Not in the slapstick Cockney Geezer mould of Snatch and Lock Stock Disadvantages: A little dark in places that a few people might find disturbing, slows down a little now and again but not majorly
...the form of last years Layer Cake. The film itself boasted a whole host of British acting talent but instantly doubt was raised as to whether Vaughn could make anything to compete with Ritchie’s debut movie. I never actually got to see Layer Cake at the cinema but as soon as the DVD was available I made sure I got myself a copy.
We never learn the lead characters name (Daniel Craig) and I think this adds a sense of mystery to the film ... ...of Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction about Layer Cake and this is a good angle for Vaughn. The film isn’t shot in real time and at times can lose you slightly as it jumps about but he does it in a way that it only takes seconds to realise if something is happening in the past or the present. In fact Vaughn seems to have stamped his vision on the film in a way that perhaps Ritchie could have used for Snatch.
Having made a name for himself as Guy Ritchie’s mate and producer of Lock Stock and Snatch, Matthew Vaughn has finally set out on his own. His directorial debut came in the form of last years Layer Cake. The film itself boasted a whole host of British acting talent but instantly doubt was raised as to whether Vaughn could make anything to compete with Ritchie’s debut movie. I never actually got to see Layer Cake at the cinema but as soon as the DVD was available I made sure I got myself a copy.
We never learn the lead characters name (Daniel Craig) and I think this adds a sense of mystery to the film and gives it a slight hook. We know a lot about him but never get to find out the name of one of London’s most successful Cocaine dealers. In fact our star is looking to the future and wants out of the drugs business early, however his supplier Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) has other ideas and gives him a couple of tasks. The first is to find a buyer for a large shipment of drugs that Duke (Jamie Foreman), has just stolen from some Ukrainian’s in Amsterdam.
Price also wants him to find the daughter of one of his old friends, Edward (Michael Gambon). She’s gone missing and Price insists that our star tracks her down as quickly as possible. It all sounds incredibly simple, or at least you would have thought so. Instead it’s actually far from it as it turns out a Ukrainian hit man is in London and knows our man is trying to offload his employer’s drugs. It doesn’t stop there as it turns out Price is also a police mole and Edwards daughter isn’t really missing, it’s just that price wants information on Edward. It’s going to be an incredibly hard time for Craig’s character but it certainly makes for interesting viewing.
If there were doubts as to whether Vaughn could actually better Ritchie’s early work, then they are wiped out incredibly quickly. There is a slight feeling of Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction about Layer Cake and this is a good angle for Vaughn. The film isn’t shot in real time and at times can lose you slightly as it jumps about but he does it in a way that it only takes seconds to realise if something is happening in the past or the present. In fact Vaughn seems to have stamped his vision on the film in a way that perhaps Ritchie could have used for Snatch.
He has teamed up with writer J.J. Connolly, who is also making his writing debut following a short stint as an actor. Both men worked together on Mean Machine with Connolly appearing in it and Vaughn helping out as a producer and it seems to have set there minds to working together on this fantastic movie. There is a real gritty edge to the movie given by the films main subjects and the way they are handled. The script is a good idea and if Connolly and Vaughn continue to make films together then they will have to go some to better this debut effort.
There was no massive budget to make a glamorous film and I think that also makes the film a lot more enjoyable. It certainly adds a sense of realism to the movie and makes the plot to be a lot more believable. I really felt that London made a fabulous location for the movie and at times felt like an extra character within the film. Vaughn shows the city from different angles, both the rich aspects and the poorer aspects of London. With a relatively small budget of 4 million Vaughn seems to have made his directorial debut look like it cost a lot more and this is largely down to his excellent choice of location.
It also helps that the cast is quite a who’s who of up and coming British talent. I felt that Craig was an excellent choice for the lead role. I wasn’t familiar with any of his earlier work but he certainly made the role his own. For parts of the movie he does the narrative voice over as well and although we never learn his characters name he seems to draw you to him. His partner in crime Morty is played superbly by George Harris who again seems to ooze class and mystery in a similar way to Craig’s character and they make an excellent team.
There is also a superb performance from Colm Meaney who starts off playing Jimmy’s right hand man. I’ve always found Meaney to be superb no matter what he’s been in from Under Siege to Con Air and Layer Cake is no exception. The totty factor is provided in the form of the future Mrs Law, Sienna Miller, who although only in the film for fleeting scenes is certainly noticeable. Another real star of the piece is Michael Gambon who although only in the film for short spells really suits the part of a London gangland boss, he’s certainly an excellent choice as well. There is an incredibly large cast and on the whole everyone puts in a brilliant performance and really makes the film watchable.
The film itself is superb and a great debut effort from both Vaughn and Connolly. It is incredibly gripping and although a little slow in places really holds you throughout. It deals with a lot of real subjects, although at ties in a slightly over the top kind of way. The plot is excellent and both of them seem to have a fantastic film future ahead of them. If you enjoyed Tarintino’s earlier efforts then you are sure to enjoy this. If you expect another Snatch or Lock Stock then this isn’t the film for you. This is a much darker film with a much grittier plot.
The DVD comes packed with extras and they made sure you really get the value out of the two discs. It boasts a number of the regular features that all DVD’s seem to come equipped with. The audio commentary is provided by Vaughn and Connolly and is quite interesting in places. On the whole I find audio commentaries to be quite similar from one film to the next. When I get a film like Layer Cake though I do find it interesting as the director and writer explain what was going through their mind or why they did things in that certain way.
It also includes the usual deleted scenes and you can chose whether to listen to Vaughn and Connolly explain why they are deleted or you can watch them with the original audio. Again this is quite interesting with the audio commentary with most scene’s being cut mainly to keep the plot running at a faster pace. The deleted scenes also include two alternate endings, including the one Sony originally wanted, but I felt Vaughn made the right choice with the ending they went with.
Again like a number of DVD’s it also includes a music Video and the films trailer. The music video is the films title track as well, the excellent Hayling by FC Kahuna. It has a haunting melody and really suits the film perfectly. They have also included the story boards of how a couple of the scene’s and although quite interesting it really is something that can only be watched once. The disc also includes a photo gallery with lines from the film recorded over the top. Some of the photos are quite good but again this isn’t a feature you would look at more than once.
The main meet of the extras so to speak are two mini features. The first is a promo for the film, where Vaughn and a number of cast members talk about the film and mainly gives Vaughn a chance to explain why he made it. The other feature is a Q&A session with Vaughn and Craig at the NFT. Both features are very interesting and although the promo is quite short it provides an excellent insight into the movie. The Q & A session is very interesting as Craig speaks about his character and how he found working on the film.
Overall there are no shortage of extras and for the £14 I paid for this 2 disk edition I was quite pleased with what I got for my money. It’s a great film with a number of interesting features that seems to be lacking from a number of new DVD releases. This is a superb advert for the British film industry and will change the direction of future British gangster movies.
Advantages: Solid narrative, great direction, good acting. Disadvantages: Formulaic, some unneeded subplots.
...surprising and unpredictable. Layer Cake takes itself a bit more seriously than Lock, Stock... and co which helps us relate more to the characters. That's not to say the film is po-faced: there's a lot of humour here, especially in the opening segment and the OTT antics of wannabe gangster The Duke. And, of course, liberal use of swear words delivered in a cockney voice always makes for easy laughs ("You bunch of sloppy wan-kahs!"). But the film ... ...that really needed?". Layer Cake is a very pleasant surprise - an intelligent, grown-up British crime film with a visual flair and some brilliant acting. Some may look down their noses at it based on the sort of film it is but it's their loss. No British crime film will ever be as good as The Long Good Friday but Layer Cake does a good job at taking the genre and proving it can still be used for good. But let's hope to God this doesn't inspire Rancid ...
ASimpleGoof 13.10.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Layer Cake (DVD)
Advantages: Entertaining, Gritty, Well Acted Disadvantages: May be one more gangster film too many for some
...the trailer had played for Layer Cake at the cinema
"Why would I want to see that, it's just another British gangster film"
Hence the reason why I never ventured to the movies to see Layer Cake. I have to confess I'd only seen Lock, Stock and Snatch, at first I liked those movies but then came to love them less and less with every carbon copy they spawned into British film history. My opinion certainly wasn't helped by the fact that Lock, Stock's ... ...his opinion and after seeing Layer Cake I'm happy to dispel the idea that the British gangster film is a dead horse. In fact Layer Cake is a refreshing change from the norm where the only thing Britain can commit to film is a mockney crime caper or a twee romantic comedy where everyone lives in London on £30,000 a year salaries.
- Welcome To The Layer Cake -
Layer Cake is about a successful cocaine dealer in London. The main character is played ...
utero 03.01.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Layer Cake (DVD)
Advantages: Good performances, tightly scripted, not as bad as the awful trailer suggests Disadvantages: Derivative and dodgy soundtrack
A nameless cocaine dealer who treats his merchandise like any other commodity and distances himself from the criminal underworld is about to retire. But he is called upon by a local gangland boss to find a missing girl. Then he gets involved in an ecstasy deal that brings him to the attention of a Serbian hit-man. Can he stick to his plan and get out before he gets killed?
First-time director Matthew Vaughn previously produced “Lock, Stock and Two ... ...clearly felt in this slick but violent British gangster film; there’s the London setting, a snappy script, plenty of swearing, crosses and double-crosses, brutal implicit and explicit violence and an underlying misogyny that suggests that women are only good for one thing. Where it differentiates from Ritchie’s back-catalogue is in the origin of the script, the composition of the cast and the shooting style. The script was penned by JJ Connolly, ...
afy9mab 12.10.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Layer Cake (DVD)
Advantages: Great plot Disadvantages: N0n memorable soundtrack
...CAK3 Introduction
Layer Cake, released in 2004 is a British Gangster Movie. The film is based on a novel of the same name by J. J. Connolly. It is the 1st film directed by Matthew Vaughn, and the 5th produced. Cast Daniel Craig (The new James Bond)
Tom Hardy (Black Hawk Down - Twombly) Jamie Foreman (Football Factory - Cabbie)
Sally Hawkins
Sienna Miller Burn Gorman Brinley Green George Harris Tamer Hassan Colm Meaney Marcel Iures Francis Magee ... ...deal.
Messages
The Layer Cake is a metaphor for different levels of British society according to 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 ...
djtmj 25.06.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Layer Cake (DVD)
Advantages: Exciting plot, great acting, scenic shots Disadvantages: Can be violent, title still makes no sense to me
...them in order of watchability. Layer Cake came right at the top as I missed on the tele last month, and I was annoyed, so we decided to watch it last night, and I am glad that we decided to watch this one!
Please note for the purposes of this review, I will call the main character X as he is never given a name in the film.
The main story follows the life of an affulent drug dealer, X, who has both a proper job as an estate agent but is a drug dealer ... ...James Bond. His character in Layer Cake is not totally dissimilar to Bond, yet there are parts of the character which is opposite to Bond in every way! Craig acts with a real confidence in this film, and has a great gritty element to him. He is totally believable in this world of drug dealing, and even the narrative voice when he does a voice over at the beginning and the end is superb, he keeps you hooked!
Other stars who stood out in the film ...
mummy2harry 26.08.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Layer Cake (DVD)
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Advantages: 2 great films Disadvantages: Changing the disc to watch the other one
LayerCake: The story line and setting of LayerCake is something that most directors can only dream of being praised about. Superbly helped along by the performances, the story provides several twists and turns following a drug dealer in London. Through creative story telling and performances you begin to feel sorry for him and even root for him to break away from the life he is trapped in.
Overall, a superb movie which can be watched over and over again with a high level of enjoyment, although may not be everyone's cup of tea.
Snatch: Hilarious British comedy featuring the obvious and the oblivious, the smart and the dumb, the civilised and the crazy. A definate must see for anyone who likes comedy through circumstance, sarcasm, irony or even the down-right stupid, this film is one of the best creations of the modern world ...
Advantages: Three amazing films in one Disadvantages: Doesn't include all the DVD extras that come with the special edition versions
I loved this collection, 3 perfect films in 1 box! 'LayerCake' is based upon a novel by JJ Connelly, and is done very well. Film from novels can sometimes ruin the novel but this is very good, some amazing acting and I loved the music.
Snatch is very good, like all Guy Richie films its got a good in depth storyline that catches you off guard, it's very funny and quick. I think that Brad Pitt's proformance was very good, loved the accent, he seemed to be really natural with it, not a stupid sterotype which always sucks!
Lock, Stock and two smoking barrels is also really funny, some of the humor is quite dry and witty which I love! A surprise appearence by Sting, didn't know he could act, but he is very talented. And of course who could forget Vinny Jones! Another very good proformance!
If you love English gangster films you will love ...
Contains strong language, drug use, violence and sex
Video Category
Feature Film
Country Of Origin
United Kingdom
Plot
The story of a successful London-based cocaine dealer who plans early retirement from the business. He is, however, handed an assignment which involves 'layers' through which he has to go in order to escape the modern underworld in which he is trapped. His final job threatens to bring him back into the 'cake mix'.
Release details
DVD Region
DVD
Studio(s)
SONY PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMENT; CINRAM LOGISTICS, UCA; CINRAM LOGISTICS (SWINDON)
Director Writer Commentary, Weblink, Deleted Scenes, Q And A At The NFT With Matthew Vaughan And Daniel Craig, Making Of Promo, Music Video FC Kahuna Hayling, Storyboard Comparisons
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Stereo
Dubbing Sound
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround English, Dolby Digital Stereo English Italian Spanish
Professional reviews
Review
LAYER CAKE is the newest in British gangland entertainment and the tastiest in years (New York Times, 11/02/2009)
DVD Description
As deeply cool and urbane as its unnamed hero, LAYER CAKE follows the precise, articulate XXXX (Daniel Craig) as he manoeuvres through what he intends to be his last business deal in modern-day London. His business...Drugs. On the cusp of turning 30, XXXX has amassed a personal fortune, deftly avoiding the violence and ugliness so many others in his trade fall prey to by following a strict personal code defined by discretion and clean detachment from the products he sells. Just as XXXX is poised to cash in and get out, Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham), the top layer of this particular underworld cake, hands down two tasks: find Eddie Temple's (Michael Gambon) drug-addicted daughter, and unload a mass of ecstasy stolen in Amsterdam by the sloppy, loud Duke (Jamie Foreman), who is exactly the type of wannabe gangster that XXXX has spent his career avoiding. Further complicating matters is Tammy (Sienna Miller), a sexy young blond who XXXX meets in a club and can't get off his mind. First-time director Michael Vaughn (producer on SNATCH and LOCK, STOCK, AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS) brings a practised eye to the film, creating a slick, highly entertaining visual style which perfectly complements the twisting storyline. The London drug world comes to vibrant life in screenwriter J.J. Connolly's adaptation of his first novel, which retains its keen ear for slang and its eye for detail, giving LAYER CAKE a thrilling ring of authenticity. In the role of XXXX, Daniel Craig has a commanding presence, portraying a man who is so good at his job that he may never be permitted to leave it, regardless of how smart he is or how well he's planned. Like the best in the crime-thriller genre, LAYER CAKE is unpredictable, unsettling, and unforgettable.
![Layer Cake [DVD] [2004]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78505598.jpg)
