LAYER CAKE is a 2004 entry in the Brit gangland subgenre. It starts with a superslick title sequence, has neat directorial flourish from first-time director Michael Vaughan, offers a fine cast, and keeps up some good patter until it finally gets too convoluted for its own good.  A lack of sympathetic involvement with the characters stalls it out, too, so it ends up as mostly an exercise in style. Fair enough.

“When I was born the world was a far simpler place. It was all just cops and robbers. But it wasn’t for me. Then came the Summer of Love. Hasish and LSD arrived on the scene. There were villains locked away for twelve years for robbing a bank of ten grand, doing time with drippy hippies down six months for smuggling two million quid worth of puff. I mean work it out mate. We’re in the wrong fucking game. Drugs. Changed. Everything. Always remember that one day all this drug monkey business will all be legal. They won’t leave it to people like me. Not once they figure out how much money is in it. Not millions. Fucking BILLIONS.”

 London-based cocaine dealer who goes by the monicker ‘XXXX’  is planning to retire. But his up-the-line hood overlords require some tidying-up services. Ain’t it always the way? Daniel Craig handled himself so well here that he was picked up for the Bond franchise.  Colm Meaney, Michael Gambon and Tom Hardy are positioned among the quip-heavy, mercy-shy ‘layers’ of society’s crime confection, along with the great Sally Hawkins as a murderous nutcase and the uber-sexy Sienna Miller as someone uber-sexy.

Done for $6,500,000, it made $11,850,000 globally (only 20% of that in the States, where it lodged 183rd place), drew mostly positive reviews and commands a loyal cult following. According to the cuss-collectors over at International Movie Data Base, over the course of 105 minutes the cast employ the go-to word that describes copulation a total of 201 times. The f-ing script was f-ing down by f-ing J.J. Connolly, who adapted the 344 pages of his own novel. Director Vaughan would go on to Stardust, Kick-Ass, X-Men:First Class and Kingsmen: The Secret Service.

With Ben Wishaw (who would become Craig’s Bond’s ‘Q’),, George Harris, Jamie Foreman, Kenneth Cranham, Dexter Fletcher, Jason Flemyng, Nathalie Lunghi, Burn Gorman.