Layer Cake: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''"Opera tonight. ''The Damnation of Faust''. Man sells his soul to the devil, it all ends in tears. These arrangements usually do."''|'''Eddie Temple'''}}

A not-so-legal London businessman (Daniel Craig), planning for an early retirement, gets in slightly over his head during [[One Last Job|one final deal]]. [[It Got Worse|Things quickly escalate]], until our hero loses control and, as they say across the pond, everything goes tits up.

The star-studded cast features a plethora of British celebs, some of whom were already famous before this flick (see Hey, it's that Guy), and some having struck fame state-side after ''Layer Cake'', particularly our [[James Bond|protagonist]].

Directed by Mathew Vaughan, and based on a novel by J.J. Connolly, ''Layer Cake'' is a clever, character-driven take on the classic gangster flick, rounded out by a brief romance, genuinely unexpected twists, and an [[Britain|overload of Britishisms]].

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{{quote|{{spoiler|Did I really think Eddie's gonna give me three million for those pills? Did I '''fuck'''.}}}}

* [[Destroy the Evidence]]: {{spoiler|XXXX [[Fiery Coverup|burns the clothes he was wearing to assassinate Jimmy]], bit forgot to retrieve the cartridge case}}.

* [[Diabolical Mastermind]]: Eddie Temple; also, probably whoever the head of the Serbians is, given that Dragan is at a near Keyser Soze level of scary, and he's a subordinate of someone who might not even be the main guy.

* [[Diabolus Ex Machina]]: The end of the movie: {{spoiler|after winning at everything, he walks out of the club, prepared to ride off into the sunset with the girl, and is instantly shot to death by a minor character with no previously shown violent tendencies}}. And apparently, the test audiences ''wanted it that way''.

* [[Diegetic Switch]]: Used with the infamous "Ordinary World" scene; the Duran Duran track can be heard faintly in the background before Morty gets his money out.

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* [[The Faceless]]: Dragan, until the very end of the film.

* [[Fade to White]]

* [[Fake Nationality]]: The Serbians are played by Romanians who, [[As Long as It Sounds Foreign|when not speaking English, speak Romanian]].

* [[False-Flag Operation]]: X fakes a police raid to extract the ecstasies from splinter gang, as well as to trick Dragan into conceding his people's stolen ecstasies for good. He knows that the Serbians are satisfied enough with the death of those who steal their drugs.

* [[Fat and Skinny]]: [[Those Two Bad Guys|Liverpudlians Trevor and Shanks]]. Trevor is a big, laid-back black guy and Shanks is white, skinny and highly twitchy.

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* [[London Gangster]]: Hangs a major lampshade on most of the tropes; most of the characters are almost nothing like typical London Gangster stereotypes.

{{quote|'''XXXX'''': ...and avoid like the fucking plague loud, attention-seeking, wannabe gangsters, in it for the glory, to be a face, to be a name. They don't mean to fuck up. They just do.}}

* [[Loveable Rogue]]: the two con artists the protagonist occasionally hires.

* [[MacGuffin]]: Eddie Temple's daughter whom the protagonist is supposed to find but is never actually found by him nor appears on screen.

* [[Match Cut]]: Used several times within the film, most notably to [[Book Ends|book end]] the assassination sequence.

* [[Narrator]]: XXXX serves as this at the start of the film in order to provide some exposition about drugs and crime.

* [[No Name Given]]: "My name? If you knew that, you'd be as clever as me." He's referred to as XXXX in the credits.

* [[Not So Above It All]]: The protagonist likes to consider himself "not a gangster, only a businessman whose commodity happens to be cocaine", but is increasingly drawn into the grittier side of his profession.

* [[One Last Job]]: See [[Retirony]]

* [[Pragmatic Villainy]]: After seeing their stolen ecstasy's holdout busted by the cops, the Serbs let X live. Granted, {{spoiler|they don't know the bust was staged by X}}, but the idea is that they don't prolong bloodfeuds for a lost cause.

* [[Pretty Little Headshots]]: {{spoiler|On both Jimmy and Mr. Lucky}}.

* [[Product Promotion Parade]]: A surreal fantasy version featuring a pharmacy/boutique full of [[wikipedia:French Connection (clothing)|FCUK]]-branded cocaine and ecstasy; the founder of French Connection was one of the films producers.

* [[Professional Killer]]:

** {{spoiler|Inverted with the protagonist, in the film at least. XXXX hates guns and killing, and when he does assassinate Price it affects him so much afterwards that he can barely function for an indeterminately long montage of drinking, sedation, and hiding in his apartment watching TV and occasionally twitching.}}

** Although played straight with Dragan and Gene.

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{{quote|'''Morty:''' But let's forget about all that. Let's have a cup of tea, Mr Hurst.}}

* [[Stuffed Into the Fridge|Stuffed Into The Freezer]]: {{spoiler|The Duke}}

* [[Terrorist Without a Cause]]: The Serbian war criminals (Neo-Nazis in the book) who have largely given up their ideological interests to be brutal and successful professional criminals. Also an example of Western Terrorists.

* [[This Is Sparta]]: YES! FUCKING! PLEASE!

* [[Title Drop]]:

* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: The Duke and the rest of his cohorts.

* [[Took a Level In Badass]]: XXXX spends much of the film thinking he's in control and on the top of his game... only to be played by someone else further up the chain. After he {{spoiler|kills Jimmy}} he becomes a ''lot'' more ruthless and thorough.

* [[Took a Level in Badass]]: XXXX spends much of the film thinking he's in control and on the top of his game... only to be played by someone else further up the chain. After he {{spoiler|kills Jimmy}} he becomes a ''lot'' more ruthless and thorough.

* [[Too Soon]]: In the novel, in the scene where X tries to use the Sniper to kill one of the [[Ruthless Foreign Gangsters]], an American tourist is mistaken for the target, and is killed by the Sniper. This is partially [[Played for Laughs]], because when the actual target runs away, the Sniper refuses to shoot him, as he was only paid for one killing that day. It's indicated that the death is spun as a casualty of the [[War On Terror]] When the film was made, distributors thought that this wouldn't go over well, especially in America, so it instead became a scene where the Sniper got killed by a [[Scope Snipe]].

* [[Unwitting Pawn]]: {{spoiler|XXXX, for most of the film, is being manipulated by either Jimmy or Eddie.}}

* [[Villainy Discretion Shot]]: Justified; the protagonist himself finds the "end users" of his business quite distasteful, and steers clear of any involvement with them, so no one is shown becoming addicted to or overdosing on his drugs.

* [[Villain Protagonist]]: Well, X is a drug dealer...

* [[Villain with Good Publicity]]: Eddie Temple (Eddie Ryder in the novel)

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[[Category:Films of the 2000s]]

[[Category:~~Layer Cake~~]]

[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]