LAYER CAKE — ** 1/2 — Daniel Craig, Colm Meaney, Michael Gambon; rated R (drugs, profanity, violence, vulgarity, brief nudity, brief sex, racial epithets, brief gore).
"Layer Cake" has style to burn. It also has a glut of characters, plot and action. But what this adaptation of J.J. Connolly's novel lacks is a sense of humor — or at least enough of one.
The movie comes from some of the same people who brought us the dark comic "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels," but it's more akin to "Sexy Beast," a considerably nastier, less likeable film. In fact, all of the nastiness here gets a little tiresome after awhile, as do the attempts to glamorize the drug trade.
The main character is an unnamed, mid-level drug dealer referred to as XXXX (Daniel Craig). By treating his line of work as a business, he's been quite successful and is even thinking about early retirement. Unfortunately, crime boss Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) asks him for two favors before he retires — he wants our (anti-)hero to locate a missing girl and to find a seller for millions of ecstacy tablets.
XXXX is hesitant to do either, and as it turns out, he's got good reason to be suspicious; he's threatened and beaten on more than one occasion. And he's pretty much in the dark about what's really going on, at least until rival crime lord Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon) kidnaps him and explains who's involved and who's into what.
XXXX isn't the only one whose confused until Gambon comes on screen to clear things up. The audience is bound to get lost amid all the plot twists and character machinations.
Director Matthew Vaughn's brisk pacing doesn't really help either. The film really moves, but a more leisurely approach might have been preferable, along with more, and less wry, humor.
The mumbly Craig was a good choice as the lead, though. His somewhat icy demeanor is appropriate for the character he plays. And there's some strong support from the always welcome Gambon and Colm Meaney, both of whom deserve more screen time.
"Layer Cake" is rated R for strong drug content (manufacturing, selling and use of ecstacy and cocaine), frequent use of strong sexual profanity, strong scenes of violence (including various shootings and beatings), crude sexual talk and use of sexual slang terms, brief female nudity (including photos), a brief sex scene, use of racial epithets, and brief gore. Running time: 105 minutes.
E-mail: jeff@desnews.com