
A successful cocaine dealer, who has earned a respected place amongst England's Mafia elite, plans an early retirement from the business. However, big boss Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) hands down a tough assignment: find Charlie Ryder (Nathalie Lunghi), the missing rich Princess daughter of Jimmy's old pal Eddie Temple (Sir Michael Gambon), a powerful construction business player and gossip papers socialite. Complicating matters are two million pounds' worth of Grade "A" ecs... (Full plot summary below)
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A successful cocaine dealer, who has earned a respected place amongst England's Mafia elite, plans an early retirement from the business. However, big boss Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) hands down a tough assignment: find Charlie Ryder (Nathalie Lunghi), the missing rich Princess daughter of Jimmy's old pal Eddie Temple (Sir Michael Gambon), a powerful construction business player and gossip papers socialite. Complicating matters are two million pounds' worth of Grade "A" ecstasy, a brutal Serbian gang, and a whole series of double crossings. The title "Layer Cake" refers to the layers or levels anyone in business goes through in rising to the top. What is revealed is a modern underworld where the rules have changed. There are no "codes", or "families", and respect lasts as long as a line. Not knowing who he can trust, he has to use all of his "savvy", "telling", and skills which make him one of the best, to escape his own. The ultimate last job, a love interest called Tammy (Sienna Miller), and an international drug ring threaten to draw him back into the "cake mix". But, time is running out and the penalty will endure a lifetime.
Leave your thoughts about Layer Cake.
| Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanFast, convulsive, and densely exciting new British gangster thriller. |
| London Evening StandardWill SelfLayer Cake features all the doublecrosses, grasses and reversals of fortune that come as standard to the genre, but it is lifted by the uniformly excellent cast, the snide intelligence of the script, and the effortless pace of Vaughn's direction. |
| WaffleMovies.comWillie WaffleLayer Cake is a fabulous movie about the underworld we only want to visit on film. |
| Village VoiceMichael AtkinsonWhat's abundantly clear is how far this kind of moviemaking has come from any knowledge of real criminal life; it's a geek's ineffectual daydream of mayhem. |
| Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanDoesn't reveal all its layers until you've taken the last bite. |
| Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaThings get a little tricky by the end, but it's the sort of trickery that's immensely satisfying. |
| L.A. WeeklyScott FoundasLike just about every British crime picture of the last decade, it's stacked with gentlemen gangsters in Saville Row suits, blockheaded yobs with names like Kinky, Tiptoes and the Duke, and a disposable caper scenario. |
| Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionEleanor Ringel CaterIt has more heft than the Ritchie movies. |
| SPLICEDWireRob BlackwelderA stylish, dynamic thicket of thorny underworld twists and deceptions. |
| Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertCraig is fascinating here as a criminal who is very smart, and finds that 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. |