Review of Roly Poly (1968) by Dave J — 02 Jan 2016

Movies like "Layer Cake" seem to work a lot better for others than they do for me. I'm speaking of films such as "Snatch," "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels," and "Go," where dialogue is wicked and musicality is well-tuned, but where there are too many characters and where there is a plot too complicated to aptly follow. I think most viewers become so stricken by well-written conversation that they forget to question what's really going on - but as a veteran movie-watcher with an appreciation for a shiny screenplay, being fooled by elastic exchanges are not in my ballpark. I like to know what the stakes, motivations, and plot twists are, not be confused by them.s.

Perhaps this was on purpose. "Layer Cake" follows an unnamed drug dealer as he plans to go into retirement, the title of the film acting as a metaphor for the leveled and messy process of attempting to commit such an action. But the several intersecting storylines are never thoroughly explained enough for us to understand which ones are more vital than others. And because its central character is the star of almost all of them, it is as though we're witnessing a tabloid star trying to run away from the paparazzi. At all times, too much is going on.

But "Layer Cake" grooms a charismatic energy similar to the way "Snatch" does - though we may not fully understand the plot as it wears us down, the dialogue is compulsively listenable and the cast is credible as a mob of criminals ranging from elegant to grizzled. At the front of the relishable ship of sin is Daniel Craig, whose suavity is so vast that it doesn't come as a surprise that he became James Bond just a year after the film's release. In "Layer Cake," he stars as an unnamed, big-time drug dealer who the credits bill as XXXX. Young and sleek, he flourishes on the entrepreneurial side of the business, dependent on henchmen to do necessary dirty work. Not one to kill, we'd almost call him a good man if he weren't so greedy and remorseless.

However much baggage he carries, however, XXXX is an anti-hero of the Clint Eastwood brand, just a little less calm and collected. As the film opens, he is at the top of his game, his dealings without interruption and his monetary success higher than ever. But a philosophy walks by his side at all times, that philosophy being that you should always go out with a bang and that, once your fortune is made, there's no point in risking the possibility of losing it all. XXXX plans to retire from the drug game as soon as possible.

Expectations, though, are not always something to be quickly met in this cruel world. To his dismay, his superior, Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) tasks him with finding the missing daughter of a colleague (Michael Gambon), as well as sorting out a botched ecstasy deal. Neither assignment is alluring, but XXXX is determined to get out of the business. We can only hope that he doesn't lose his life, or worse, his financial superiority, while doing so.

Attitude goes a long way in "Layer Cake," and thankfully, it has enough spunk and threatening faces to both mock its seriousness and maintain a dangerous tone that convinces us that cheeky quips don't ensure that the crime world isn't safe enough to allow us to stop worrying about a random bullet to the head. Matthew Vaughn, in his directorial debut, gives the film a glossy visual style able to make even bloodshed seem posh; J.J. Connolly's (also the author of the novel) script is remarkably lightning paced. Comprehensibility isn't a feature of "Layer Cake," and it's a problem. But its swagger is irresistible.