Laying It on Thick

There’s a moment about midway through “Layer Cake” when a powerful industrialist who dabbles in crime (Michael Gambon) explains to the movie’s protagonist (Daniel Craig) the various ways he’s been set up. “I’m sorry, what?” replies a befuddled Mr. Craig. Mr. Gambon tries again, but the response is the same. “I’m still not with you,” Mr. Craig pleads. Viewers are likely to feel the same way.“Layer Cake” is a sorely muddled entry in the hip Brit thriller genre by first time director Matthew Vaughn, who was the producer behind the Guy Ritchie lad flicks “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch.” Because of this connection, “Layer Cake” will inevitably be compared to those exercises in breakneck bloodshed. But Mr. Vaughn has little of Ritchie’s taste for stylish excess.In fact, “Layer Cake” fits more neatly in the tradition of low-key British viciousness pioneered by “Get Carter” and carried on in films such as “The Long Good Friday” and “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.” At first, this restrained manner and deliberate pace are assets, a respite from the ostentatious cleverness and kinetic camerawork of the post-Tarantino age. But as “Layer Cake” meanders its way through nearly two hours of inscrutable convolutions, the lack of cinematic sizzle becomes deadening.The film starts out promisingly enough, with a monologue reminiscent of “Trainspotting,” in which Mr. Craig’s character, a mid-level drug dealer (or, as he puts it, “a businessman whose commodity happens to be cocaine”), introduces himself and the other principals, offers a brief history of organized crime (“drugs changed everything”), and predicts his profession will soon be the province of multinational corporations. For his own part, he intends to retire in a week’s time with a cool million in ill-gotten gains.Fate, of course, has other plans. He is summoned to lunch by his boss (Kenneth Cranham) and charged with two chores: first, to locate the missing daughter of an old friend (Mr. Gambon); and second, to oversee the sale of a million ecstasy pills that have found their way into the hands of an out-of-control gangster who calls himself “the Duke” (Jamie Foreman). Neither task, needless to say, is as straightforward as advertised, and Mr. Craig soon finds himself beset on all sides by villainous interests, including the Serbian war criminals from whom, it turns out, the pills were stolen in the first place.The Serbs are actually something of a relief since, thanks to their accents, they are at least recognizable. The various British thugs who work for Mr. Craig, Mr. Cranham, and Mr. Foreman – not to mention those hired to help find the girl and those lined up to buy the drugs – are another matter altogether. I hope it is not culturally insensitive to say that they all look the same to me. Just keeping straight the identities and allegiances of such flunkies as Kinky, Cody, Lucky, and Shanks calls for an advanced degree in hoodlum taxonomy.The initial screenplay for “Layer Cake,” which was adapted by J.J. Connolly from his own novel, reportedly ran to 400 pages – about enough for a seven-hour film. The radical surgery it subsequently underwent seems to have left behind a number of amputated story lines. A handful of flashbacks offers elaborate details about the criminal landscape back when the older generation were still young, but their relevance to the present day is unclear. A fetching love interest (Jude Law squeeze Sienna Miller) is tossed into the mix for a few fleeting cameos, but never comes remotely to life.Stronger direction might have been able to rein in the clutter, but Mr. Vaughn gets lost in it. Characters are sloppily introduced and situations clumsily staged. When, on a couple of occasions, Mr. Vaughn crosscuts back and forth between scenes, the alternating story lines merely trip over one another. The result is a film that feels as if it has escaped its director’s control.“Layer Cake” does have its strengths. Leading man Mr. Craig is quietly charismatic, his rough features suggesting a welterweight Clive Owen. Mr. Gambon is exceptional as always, his sleazy baritone in fine form. And those looking for innovative abuses of the human form will be treated to a killing by electric iron, a beheading (postmortem, thankfully), and the casual pouring of a pot of hot tea onto an unconscious man’s head.Alas, even these limited charms are undone by the movie’s conclusion, a series of reversals so arbitrary and idiotic that they extinguish any flickering goodwill. It is also at this point that the film announces with juvenile glee its most dubious gimmick: It has never disclosed its protagonist’s name. “If you knew that,” Mr. Craig informs the camera with a wry grin, “you’d be as clever as me.” (Within seconds we will learn that this is not much of a compliment.)A little earlier in the proceedings, Mr. Gambon explains to Mr. Craig how the underworld hierarchy works: Starting out, you take a great deal of crap (though “crap” is not the word he uses); with each promotion to a new level, you take a little less crap. “Welcome to the layer cake, son,” he concludes. Yes, the title of the movie is a metaphor for a pile of excrement. It’s a little too apt.

Laying It on Thick

Laying It on Thick

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