http://imdb.com/title/tt0375912/

Complicated plot, cliché crammed, and yet “interesting”.

I have misc feelings regarding Layer Cake: if there were fewer, but better developed, characters; fewer and more original killings; and less underlying sub-plots, then this could have been a huge achiever.

Let me start at the end: in order to build the characters as the time line goes on, an option was made to “flash back” key events. It is this “time machine” that will explain some Morty attitudes; it is this same technique that will introduce the major plot, when a group of less professional drug dealers robs the wrong people and sparks an interesting chain of events… In a single phrase, going back in time is the preferred technique the movie uses to sustain why things are happening the way they are. Of course there is nothing wrong with this technique per se, other than being disruptive; so, when this technique is dominant, or nearly dominant, the flow suffers.
More original killings? The ideal would be no killings at all! Why must people die on screen? Death is big and terminal, and whenever it is used it is close to abused: the script writers are recurring to the “atomic bomb”, many times to kill an ant…
Better developed characters? Oh yes. The easier example is the great Colm Meaney playing the character “Gene”, who gets to speak a dozen times, of which the viewer knows nearly nothing, so there is no reason to be (not) surprised, when he literally turns head chopper.

Again: interesting movie.

My rating: 6.5/10.

Layer Cake (Widescreen Edition) via amazon.com [for the Americas]

Layer Cake [2004] via amazon.co.uk [for Europe]

Layer Cake (Widescreen Edition)