Layer Cake: Difference between revisions

* [[Black Comedy Burst]]: At heart it's a brutal film about the perils of the drug trade, but there's an awful lot of [[Gallows Humour]] about too.

* [[Book Ends]]: The film starts with an [[Armed Blag|armed robbery of a payroll van]] in the [[The Sixties|60's]], and [[Full-Circle Revolution|ends with an armed robbery of a drug shipment]].

* [[Billing Displacement]]: The film advertising prominently places Sienna Miller with Craig, even though she plays a minor character in the film.

* [[Brains and Brawn]]: Most noticeably with Gene and his bruiser, but obvious throughout most of the gangster circles.

'''Gene''': Yeah, well he fuckin' ''has'', hasn't he? }}

* [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]]: a particularly twisted example. At the end of the movie, X turns around and tells the audience, "My name? If you know that, you'd be as clever as me." {{spoiler|Because he turns around, he can't see that Sidney is coming to him with a gun.}}

* [[Coincidental Broadcast]]: In the book only.

* [[Companion Cube]]: Gene and his guns, especially his silenced pistol.

* [[Cool and Unusual Punishment]]: Having your chest ironed.

* [[Cool Guns]]: Amongst many others, Gene keeps a P08/Luger and a Thompson submachine gun in his cabinet.

* [[Crazy Jealous Guy]]: {{spoiler|Sidney}}

* [[Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!]]: Deconstructed and then reconstructed by the end. At first XXXX proclaims his job to be an excellent method of employment with good retirement options. When he finally does end up facing the rest of the criminal underworld, however, they're all either idiots or terrifying cold-hearted thugs and all with their own flaws and quirks. {{spoiler|XXXX also finds out how much killing someone affects your conscience and peace of mind. In the end, however, the trope is at least partially reconstructed by Eddie Temple with an incredibly cool speech about the nature of the criminal game.}}

* [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]]: X after Eddie robs him his pills. {{spoiler|Turns out he's already planned to ambush Eddie's mercs and rob his pills back.}}

* [[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.

* [[Jerkass]]: Mr. X himself. But Crazy Larry [[Incredibly Lame Pun|takes the cake]].

* [[I Need a Freaking Drink]]:

'''XXXX''': *[[Oh Crap|beat]]* You know, I will have one of those. }}

* [[Kubrick Stare]]: Used as [[Match Cut]] [[Book Ends]] when {{spoiler|XXXX decides to kill Jimmy}}

* [[Lighter and Softer]]: The film mostly fits this compared to the novel, as in the novel, pretty much every gangster has a [[Hair-Trigger Temper]] and all are a lot more thuggish; likewise, the protagonist is a jerkass, only slightly more polished than his associates. However, the ending of the film is darker than that of the novel.

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

* [[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.

* [[Screw the Money, I Have Rules]]: The Serbians are are an evil version of this. While a fortune in drugs was stolen from them, it turns out that this is just a pittance and they content with the deaths of those who stole from them.

* [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here]]: After Morty's [[Extreme Melee Revenge]];

'''Morty''': ...I might not be around for a while. }}

* [[Sharp-Dressed Man]]: XXXX sure looks good in a nice suit.

* [[Spanner in the Works]]: The tiniest loose ends can get you in the end.

* [[Spot of Tea]]: Naturally, being a British film... but horrifically subverted.

* [[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.