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Layer Cake is a 2004 British crime thriller film directed and produced by Matthew Vaughn, in his directorial debut. The screenplay was adapted by J. J. Connolly from his 2000 novel. It stars Daniel Craig as a London-based drug dealer (unnamed in the film and listed in the credits as ‘XXXX’) who wants to leave his criminal life behind. The cast also features Colm Meaney, Kenneth Cranham, George Harris, Jamie Foreman, Sienna Miller, Michael Gambon, Tom Hardy, Ben Whishaw, Burn Gorman, Sally Hawkins and Marcel Iureș. The title refers to the social strata, especially in the British criminal underworld.
Layer Cake was released in the United Kingdom by Columbia Pictures on 1 October 2004. It grossed $11.9 million at the box office and received generally positive reviews from critics. Vaughn was nominated for Most Promising Newcomer at the 58th BAFTA Awards. Craig's performance in the film has often been cited as a major factor in his casting as James Bond in 2005.
Contents
Plot
The protagonist XXXX (otherwise unnamed) is a London cocaine distributor who abhors violence and operates with the care and professionalism of a legitimate businessman. His chief associates are his enforcer and partner Morty, and Gene, an Irish gangster who serves as his liaison to mob boss Jimmy Price. Just as XXXX is ready to retire from criminal life, he is summoned to a lunch meeting with Jimmy, who gives him two tasks.
The first is to track down Charlie, the drug-addicted runaway daughter of one of Price's associates. XXXX enlists the con men Cody and Tiptoes to find her; they learn that Charlie has apparently been kidnapped, but are unable to discover who abducted her.
The second task is for XXXX to oversee the purchase of one million ecstasy tablets from the "Duke", a low-level criminal who recently returned to London from Amsterdam with his girlfriend Slasher and crew of thugs led by his right-hand man Gazza. Unbeknownst to XXXX, the Duke and his crew have stolen the pills from a gang of Serbian war criminals. He meets the Duke's feckless nephew, Sidney, and finds himself attracted to his girlfriend Tammy. XXXX tries to broker the sale of the pills to Liverpool gangsters Trevor and Shanks but they refuse, informing him of their origin and that the vengeful Serbians have sent the assassin Dragan to recover the pills and kill the thieves. As the Duke had mentioned his name to the Serbians, XXXX is also a target.
XXXX arranges a tryst with Tammy but is kidnapped and brought to Eddie Temple, a wealthy crime lord. Eddie explains that Charlie is his daughter, whom he has recovered; Jimmy, having recently lost a fortune due to bad investments he blames on Eddie, wanted her as a hostage until Eddie recouped his losses. Eddie gives XXXX a recording, revealing that Jimmy has been working as an informant for Scotland Yard, planning to betray XXXX to the police once the pills were sold in exchange for immunity for his own crimes and XXXX's money. Eddie demands that XXXX sell him the pills instead.
XXXX assassinates Jimmy at his home, but later finds that his accountant, an associate of Jimmy's, has vanished along with XXXX's money. Confronted by Gene and Morty, he shares the evidence of Jimmy's betrayal, and the pair acknowledge him as the new acting boss. Gene shows them the corpse of the Duke, who was killed by one of his men when Slasher threatened to go to the police if Jimmy did not help them out of their situation. XXXX hires hitman Lucky, an associate of Trevor and Shanks, to ambush and kill Dragan, but Dragan kills Lucky first and makes XXXX promise to recover the pills.
Production
Filming began in June 2003. Queen's Gate Mews in South Kensington, London, was used as the filming location for the home of Daniel Craig's main character. Location shooting also took place in Amsterdam.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack from Layer Cake comprises 14 tracks.
The Rolling Stones song "Gimme Shelter" also features in the film but does not appear on the soundtrack album.
Release
Home media
Layer Cake was released on DVD and VHS on 23 August 2005 and on Blu-ray in 2007. It was also re-released in 2014.
Reception
Critical response
Layer Cake received positive reviews, with an 81% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an average of 7.1/10 based on 142 reviews. The critical consensus states that it is "A stylized, electric British crime thriller". On Metacritic it has a weighted average score of 73 out of 100 based on 30 reviews.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times remarked, "The movie was directed by Matthew Vaughn, who produced Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, and this one works better than those films because it doesn't try so hard to be clever and tries harder to be menacing". Of Craig's performance, he said, "Craig is fascinating here as a criminal who is very smart, and finds that it is not an advantage because while you might be able to figure out what another smart person is about to do, dumbos like the men he works for are likely to do anything". He gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle remarked on the "efficient, gripping story" and wrote that Craig's performance as an improvising, "intelligent amateur" contained the "cool-yet-humble vibe of Steve McQueen". Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave it a grade A, calling it a "Fast, convulsive, and densely exciting new British gangster thriller". Leslie Felperin of Variety wrote: "There's a proper lived-in believability about Layer Cake's depiction of how the worlds of the rich, the criminal and the criminally rich intersect."
Follow-up
Connoly wrote a follow up novel to Layer Cake entitled Viva La Madness In 2013, Connolly was announced to be involved in the production of an adaptation, with Jason Statham taking over from Daniel Craig. On 17 September 2015, it was reported that Viva La Madness will be a TV show for Gaumont International Television. In 2026, Viva La Madness was announced to be in production with Guy Ritchie directing and co-writing alongside Connolly. The film will reportedly have no direct connections to the 2004 film Layer Cake.
Legacy
Craig's starring role in the film has been cited as the performance that led to his high-profile casting as James Bond.