Saturday 20 August 2011

Layer Cake

2004 by Matthew Vaughn - British movie

I think many people I know consider James Bond films as the best they know about British films, except for an occassional Gandhi or others. I consider British movies almost in the same wave length as those from rest of Europe, much better than from the Americas. Watching Layer Cake, I am quite impressed that their entertainers are excellent too, not going over the board always, like in the Hollywood ones.

Our hero is a cocaine delaer, very successful but is planning to retire from his nasty business. But then his chief gives him an important assignment. There is also a huge ecstacy deal, he needs to settle out, which was infact stolen from Netherlands, from a neo Nazi sect. 

It is interesting that the hero doesnt have a name in this movie and we do not realise it until the very end. The troubles he seem to be in are so nicely woven together that the movie looks like an absolute thriller, without any over the board action scenes at all. This is what I consider as the biggest high light of this movie. It is thrilling to the hilt and it has great sense of an under current of action, but there are hardly any action at all.

This is a brilliantly scripted and executed thriller movie. The climax especially is brilliant, though we feel bad about it, it is quite realistic and the whole movie is brilliantly realistic. Nothing over the top, anywhere.

This is a classy entertainer, something in the path of Goodfellas, Casino etc.

In the beginning, when our hero is narrating the mafia world, he says something like - note that one day all this drug business will be legal, once the system realise how much money is to be made from it, not millions, but billions.