Layer Cake (2004) A Retrospective
…and the rise and rise of Daniel Craig and Matthew Vaughn
Your Star of the Present and Future
Daniel Craig is never named throughout the film and only known as “XXXX” in the closing credits and after the final frames which if I even hinted at would spoil the entire film and even in spite of the fact it follows the template of one of my favourite films (and endings to a film) of all time. So let’s return to the very beginning of Layer Cake and a 9 minute narration from Daniel Craig as he describes growing up in a more innocent time of simple “cops and robbers” before the 1960’s and the “Summer of Love” and the first through line of the film: “Drugs changed everything”. On the surface, Craig’s character is a self-employed “businessman” but his business is cocaine and he deals only in kilos that will cost £28K per single batch or “15 years in prison”. But following his strict business code of knowing his enemy, paying his suppliers promptly, never dealing with the “end user” and keeping a small, tight team around him of “Morty” (George Harris), “Terry” (Tamer Hassan) and “Clarkie” (Tom Hardy) he has no intention of going to prison and is in fact planning to leave this life behind with £1M in his pocket as “life is so fucking good I can taste it in my spit”.
Cue “She Sells Sanctuary” by The Cult (another through line of the film are the magnificent song choices that surround it) but as you would expect from a gangster film such as this there are flies in XXXX’s ointment and although he keeps a small, tight knit team around him he’s a “flash runt who thinks he’s retiring” who also keeps “very, very bad company” according to some people, and quickly he has a gang of Serbian “war criminals” looking for his head as he becomes the fence for millions of someone else’s ecstasy pills, an ill advised private detective on the look-out for a millionaire’s missing daughter oh, and he’s falling in lust with the squeeze of the nephew of his now millionaire business partner “Tammy” (Sienna Miller).
In the two decades since Layer Cake, Daniel Craig has of course become synonymous as James Bond (and let’s be honest, Quantum of Solace aside, a damn good James Bond) but working with the likes of Steven Spielberg (Munich and The Adventures of Tin Tin), David Fincher (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), Steven Soderbergh (Logan Lucky) and Rian Johnson (Knives Out and Glass Onion), Craig’s cinematic star has soared into the stratosphere of Tinseltown and with a third collaboration with Rian Johnson awaited this year, one wonders where his star will soar next post being Britain’s gentleman spy with a licence to kill.
Your Director of the Present and Future
Following producing credits on Guy Ritchie’s first three stints as director (the incredible Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch and the dreadfully awful Swept Away), Matthew Vaughn’s star has also soared in the two decades since Layer Cake here with a lucky seven films from Stardust in 2007 through to the cruelly overlooked Argylle in 2024. In between, Kick-Ass confirmed his greatness as a cinematic director before taking control of the X-Men franchise and hitting even greater heights with Kingsman which three films in, has quickly become a franchise all of its own.
Returning in conclusion to his debut film, I never wholly loved Layer Cake two decades ago and even now in retrospect and following a re-watch last night I still find it too convoluted, a little befuddling and perhaps too many ideas and story strands crammed into 105 minutes of screen time. That said, the soundtrack (containing the likes of “You Got The Love” by The Source featuring Candi Staton, “Making for Plans for Nigel” by XTC and particularly “Ordinary World” by Duran Duran as XXXX’s life begins to turn to shit…) are brilliant choices, as is the inclusion of Michael Gambon as he tears it up in a wonderful cameo. All these years later, perhaps the most pleasing point on which to end is my beautiful son’s appreciation for all things Daniel Craig and James Bond and particularly the films of Matthew Vaughn and especially his Kingsman franchise of which he adores almost like no other.
From boy to man, Lock, Stock and Too Many Gangsters to hired killers in sharp suits and a bumbling detective sifting through the evidence and detritus of other people’s failings, all hail Daniel Craig and Matthew Vaughn.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my two recently self-published books. Both are free to read if you subscribe to Amazon Kindle “Unlimited” or reasonably priced in both paperback and hardback. Go on, treat yourself or a loved one and help out an Indie Author! Buy the books if you’re financially able to. They also look far, far better in print!
We HAVE to keep the spirit of reading books alive and well.
Thanks.
"still life, with gooseberry" - link to Amazon
"Rasputin and Raspberry Jam" - link to Amazon