Mr. XXXX
Now Playing: Layer Cake (Matthew Vaughn, 2004)
I’ve admitted elsewhere on this blog to being a sucker for crime-genre pictures. By that I don’t mean that I give these pictures a pass—-only that I don’t expect these movies to break much new ground but rather to respect the conventions of the genre and do what they do well. Someone who’s not a sucker for the genre might enjoy Sexy Beast yet wonder why someone like myself gets all giddy about it. Thus, I was anticipating the eventual arrival in Denver of Matthew Vaughn’s directorial debut Layer Cake, which promised a twisty journey through the back rooms of the London underworld. Vaughn previously served as a producer on two of Guy Ritchie’s exercises in style over substance (For the record: I didn’t like Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels; but I did like Snatch--virtually the same movie remade with a higher budget--due to its great cast and sheer exuberance), and stepped behind the camera when Ritchie bowed out of the production. It’s a good thing, for Vaughn proves to be a capable director, endowing the film not only with a distinctive visual flair (though thankfully not nearly as hyperkinetic as his former partner), but also with a moodiness that suits the material well.

Daniel Craig plays the unnamed protagonist, an upper-echelon drug dealer who’s essentially a middleman between the manufacturers and the dealers. He sees himself as a businessman, and abides by some rather strict rules of conduct which keep him and his close associates wealthy and out of trouble with the law. As the film begins, he has just completed a big cocaine deal that will net him a cool million pounds after the money is laundered. He plans to take his big paycheck and disappear into comfortable retirement. What, has he never seen a crime movie? Retirement plans never bode well for the (anti)hero, and here is no exception. Crime boss Jimmy Price enlists XXXX (yes, that’s how he’s listed in the credits) to unload a large quantity of ecstasy smuggled in from Amsterdam, and to find construction magnate Eddie Temple’s (Michael Gambon, at his reptilian best) missing daughter. Unsurprisingly, things get more complicated from there.

Craig’s performance is quite good—-he’s very believable as a man who has achieved his position by being smarter, quicker, and more careful than the competition. When his name was being bandied about as the next Bond, I didn’t see it—-I do now. He’s able to simultaneously convey smoothness and menace; he can seem sympathetic one moment and psychopathic the next. And he looks good in a tailored suit. There’s a large supporting cast, which includes Gambon, Colm Meaney (excellent as Price’s right-hand man), Tom Hardy (unrecognizable from his previous starring role in the last Star Trek movie), and many others; Vaughn handles them deftly, with the exception of the tiny part of Tammy (Sienna Miller) who plays the dual role of plot contrivance and sole female presence. He navigates the twisty plot with an assured facility, and though the accents are occasionally impenetrable, it’s not too difficult to follow along. Despite the flashy camerawork and pomo time shifts, Vaughn clearly owes more to the great French crime films of Becker and Melville than Tarantino. These films (as in the great Touchez-pas Au Grisbi and Bob le Flambeur) see the central conflict of crime films as rising from the disruption of the protagonist’s carefully ordered lifestyle by forces beyond his control, and Layer Cake follows this pattern closely. XXXX’s life is controlled to the most minute detail as the film begins; the journey of the film concerns its unraveling and XXXX’s attempts to stay one step ahead of the disaster that’s dogging him. It’s not an earth-shattering work, but those that enjoy such things will find the ride quite enjoyable.

Until the last scene. I won’t spoil the ending, but suffice it to say that there are about three ways crime films end, and Vaughn seems to be unable to make up his mind, so he gives us all of them in about a minute and a half. The last shot feels like a cheap betrayal of the audience’s emotional investment in the character. I have not read the novel upon which the movie was based, so perhaps it’s faithful. If so, it’s no excuse; Vaughn should have taken the opportunity to come up with something more satisfying.