| | | "From the Producer of Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels."
Features: Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 2.40:1, Dolby Digital (5.1), English, Spanish, Subtitled, French, Dubbed & Subtitled
Planning to retire and begin a new life, Mr. X (Daniel Craig, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider), a successful West End drug dealer, has been asked for one last favor: to negotiate the sale of one million hits of Ecstasy. Unfortunately for Mr. X, the pills were stolen from a Serbian drug lord who'll cut off his head if he sells them. And with a London crime czar (Michael Gambon, Open Range, The Insider) promising to retire him permanently if he doesn't, Mr. X may be rightfully concerned about his future. Nothing worth losing his head over.
"Hilarious and genuinely cool." Glenn Kenny, Premiere
"Crime dramas are common, but there are things about Layer Cake that put it into a special class." Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
"A dense, wild, and convulsive gangster thriller!" Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
Editor's Note
As deeply cool and urbane as its unnamed hero, LAYER CAKE follows the precise, articulate XXXX (Daniel Craig) as he maneuvers through what he intends to be his last business deal in modern-day London. His business? Drugs. On the cusp of turning 30, XXXX has amassed a personal fortune, deftly avoiding the violence and ugliness so many others in his trade fall prey to by following a strict personal code defined by discretion and clean detachment from the products he sells. Just as XXXX is poised to cash in and get out, Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham), the top layer of this particular underworld cake, hands down two tasks: find Eddie Temple's (Michael Gambon) drug-addicted daughter, and unload a mass of ecstasy stolen in Amsterdam by the sloppy, loud Duke (Jamie Foreman), who is exactly the type of wannabe gangster that XXXX has spent his career avoiding. Further complicating matters is Tammy (Sienna Miller), a sexy young blond who XXXX meets in a club and can't get off his mind.First-time director Michael Vaughn (producer on SNATCH and LOCK, STOCK, AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS) brings a practiced eye to the film, creating a slick, highly entertaining visual style which perfectly complements the twisting storyline. The London drug world comes to vibrant life in screenwriter J.J. Connolly's adaptation of his first novel, which retains its keen ear for slang and its eye for detail, giving LAYER CAKE a thrilling ring of authenticity. In the role of XXXX, Daniel Craig has a commanding presence, portraying a man who is so good at his job that he may never be permitted to leave it, regardless of how smart he is or how well he's planned. Like the best in the crime-thriller genre, LAYER CAKE is unpredictable, unsettling, and unforgettable.
| Features | Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | This Is A Blu-Ray DVD Made For Blue-Laser Format Players Which Produce Higher Quality Picture And Sound |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Sony Pictures |
| Release Date: 3/13/2007 |
| Running Time: 105 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2005 | | Catalog ID: 17116 | | UPC: 00043396171169 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 2.40:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Nominee (2005) | | | British Academy Awards, Matthew Vaughn, Carl Foreman Award for the Most Promising Newcomer |
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| | Professional Reviews | New York Times
"LAYER CAKE is the newest in British gangland entertainment and the tastiest in years." 05/13/2005 p.E13Los Angeles Times
"[A] stunningly suave performance by Craig, a top-drawer supporting cast and a dynamic directing debut by producer Matthew Vaughn." 05/13/2005 p.E8 Entertainment Weekly
"[F]ast, convulsive, and densely exciting....[With a] bravura display of underworld grace under pressure..." 05/20/2005 p.54 USA Today
"[T]here's a lot here to feed crime-fiction enthusiasts. Craig has an interesting face you can read a lot into..." 05/13/2005 p.6E Ultimate DVD
4 stars out of 5 -- "Vaughn's direction is ultra-stylized, smart and hip and it looks fantastic in HD..." 05/01/2007 p.81 ReelViews 8 of 10
Layer Cake is the latest in the recent cluster of British gangster/caper films begun by Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Matthew Vaughn, the director and co-producer of Layer Cake, held the producing credit for Lock and Ritchie's follow-up, Snatch. As such, it's no surprise that Layer Cake borrows aspects of the "feel" of those films. There's the same morbid sense of black humor, although Layer Cake is more character driven and less gruesome than the earlier productions. And, for pure shock value, it contains a "didn't see that one coming" moment unlike anything in either of Ritchie's ventures into this genre...Layer Cake has a fresh, distinctive style that points to its director as being confident in his material and the way he has chosen to bring it to the screen. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 9 of 10
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. It's difficult to take danger seriously when it's packaged in fancy camera work, although Guy Ritchie's "Lock, Stock" did have a carefree visual genius. "Layer Cake" is more in the Scorsese vein, in which a smart and ambitious young man has it all figured out and then gradually loses control to old-fashioned hoods who don't have the patience for prudence when it's easier to just eliminate anyone who gets in their way. The problem is that every dead enemy tends to have a more dangerous living enemy standing next in line. - Roger Ebert
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