Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I first met Matthew Vaughn a couple of years ago. Harry and I had lunch with him and with Guy Richie. They hadn’t finished SNATCH yet, and neither of them seemed particularly interested in hard-selling us the movie. Instead, the conversation was more about movies in general. At the time, I never would have guessed that Vaughn had any interest in directing.
I certainly never expected that he’d be better at it than Richie.
LAYER CAKE, adapted by J.J. Connolly from his own novel, is a hard-boiled crime story akin to GET CARTER or THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY. Daniel Craig plays the (intentionally) nameless protagonist of the film, a drug dealer who specializes in cocaine for upper-class posh clientele. He runs a small crew and keeps a low profile, and he’s smart, calculating, sure that he’ll be able to make his nest egg and get out of the game while he’s still a young man. He works for Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham), and one afternoon, he is summoned to Jimmy’s club and asked to do a favor for him. The daughter of another gangster, Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon), has gone missing, and Jimmy wants Craig’s character to track her down safely. Unfortunately, at the same time, a bunch of morons working for The Duke (Jamie Foreman) steals a ton of Ecstasy pills from some Serbian dealers in Amsterdam, and Craig gets caught up in trying to get rid of the pills against his will, making his other job even harder. Things spiral quickly out of control, and Craig finds himself struggling to stay alive and in one piece.
Sounds familiar, right? And, yes, we’ve seen movies like this before. What distinguishes this from the Guy Richie films, for example, is tone. Daniel Craig plays the lead in this film with a grim, unsmiling manner, and the way the violence and the intensity escalate has real weight to it. It’s an interesting choice to never reveal the character’s name to the audience. He fits the archetype of Sergio Leone’s Man With No Name, but there’s also a bit of a petulant “fuck you” about it, which is completely keeping in character. Craig should benefit tremendously from his work here. He made a strong impression before this in the Sam Mendes film of THE ROAD TO PERDITION as Paul Newman’s son, but that character was weak, deeply flawed. Here, he plays a man of strength and savvy, determined to negotiate this impossible situation. Vaughn’s got a very different visual style than Richie did, thanks to his director of photography Ben V. Davis. It’s much cleaner, less frantic, and he manages to actually make London look beautiful. I’m so used to seeing English crime films set in scummy, filthy urban environments that this feels bold simply by virtue of design. Craig’s surrounded by a strong supporting cast like Gambon, Cranham, Dexter Fletcher, Jason Flemyng, and the outstanding Colm Meany. Sienna Miller, who played such a memorable role in ALFIE, makes a brief appearance here, and even though it’s not much of a role, she is fairly remarkable eye candy. Along with the cinematography, credit must be given to editor Jon Harris, who helps first-time director Vaughn give his film a sleek, polished finish. The score by Ilan Eshkeri and Lisa Gerrard is appropriately moody and chilly, and the songs in the film seem to have been chosen more for their emotional feel than their current hipness, a welcome decision.
The film wraps up all its loose ends in a surprisingly straightforward manner. This isn’t meant to have some giant fabulous twist ending that inverts everything that came before it, and I’m glad. It’s just a good, gritty story, told well. There’s integrity to the film. In the end, I wouldn’t call LAYER CAKE a great film, but I would call it a great directorial debut and a real announcement of what Craig’s capable of as a leading man. Between this and his brand-new baby girl (congratulations, man), everything’s coming up roses for Vaughn right now. I hope it continues when the film gets released by Sony Pictures Classics here in the US next year.
"Moriarty" out.
