FanUnity B(uzz)log

I rented "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" and "Layer Cake" at the same time, intending to watch "Hitchhiker's Guide" with my wife, as we like to watch comedies together, and "Layer Cake" by myself some other time, since she doesn't go for films with a lot of violence. Well, "Hitchhiker's Guide" was so terrible that within 20 minutes of popping it in the DVD player my wife had decided she was too tired to stay up to watch that crap and I was upstairs watching "Layer Cake."

"Layer Cake" follows an unnamed drug dealer played by Daniel Craig, who finds himself between a rock and a hard place. He's been charged by a powerful and lethal underworld figure to broker a deal for a large amount of drugs, which he later learns was stolen from a bunch of Serbian war criminals that want it back. If he does the bidding of the powerful and lethal underworld figure, the Serbs will kill kim. If he gives the drugs back to the Serbs, the underworld figure will show him how powerful and lethal he is. Our unnamed protagonist is screwed.

There's a lot more too it than that as "Layer Cake" tries to weave so many plot layers together that the story becomes overly complex. There are a few neat twists and turns, including a surprise ending, but "Layer Cake" does little to distinguish itself from faux-Tarantino genre films like "Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels" and "Snatch." Set in the London underworld, the movie has a similar feel to those Guy Ritchie affairs, which makes sense because the director of this (Matthew Vaughn) was the producer on those.

"Layer Cake" mixes together an interesting array of actors. Colm Meaney, best known as Chief O'Brien from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" is one of the unnamed protagonist's thug allies. The superpretty Sienna Miller is the love interest, though only enough time is spent on that to get her in her britches. She seems to appear more on the film's DVD cover and backside than she does in the actual film. Professor Dumbledore himself, Michael Gambon, has a hand in the precedings as a veteran underworld figure associated with the guy whose got our protag in such a bind. All serve their roles well, as do most of the other cast members.

I'd write more about "Layer Cake", but honestly it didn't impress me. Based on the buzz that surrounded the film when it was in theaters, I expected more. It's not a bad movie, a lot better than the awful "Hitchhiker's Guide", meaning I made it the whole way through, but it certain isn't worth going out of your way for.

2/5 Stars.