Producer Matthew Vaughn's directing debut is a briskly paced, stylish and bracingly bitter adaptation of J.J. Connolly's novel about a sleek London cocaine dealer who doesn't understand his business as well as he thinks. The titular layer cake is a metaphor, alluding both to England's class system and to the stratification of the underworld, from gutter punks to polished crime lords. The nameless protagonist (Daniel Craig) — call him X — has made a pile of money in drugs, established a successful realty business as a front and laundered his ill-gotten gains through the same accountant used by his boss, prosperous, aging cockney hard-case Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham)...
Released:
2005
Rated:
R
Length:
105 mins