The Movie: Layer Cake, directed by Matthew Vaughn
Recommendation: Me
Reason: I wanted to see how the new James Bond shaped up in his earlier roles.
Guy Ritchie needs to shape the hell up. I'm a huge fan of Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Hey, everyone loves a caper movie, right? Ocean's Eleven through Thirteen (just speculating on that one), O Brother Where Art Thou?, they've been decent hits, good movies to watch just to have something to watch. Heist movies live and die on style, and Ritchie had a whole hell of a lot of it. There was just something so perfect about the fast cuts, the writing, the casting, and the directing that Ritchie did on his better known pictures. He was supposed to direct this little number, but he didn't. Passed on the torch to Matthew Vaughn, on a movie that could have been a triumphant return to the genre he'd helped revive.
Vaughn was involved in Lock, Stock... and Snatch as a producer, so it's no surprise he handled Layer Cake so nicely. It has a similar feel to Ritchie's originals. Unfortunately, it's not so engaging as either. The plot twists and turns in some really great (though predictable) ways, but aside from Daniel Craig's stone cold XXXX and a very good ending, it doesn't stand as an equal to the movies it's succeeded.
Daniel Craig is definitely comment-worthy. He's a unique, understated actor with a great unruffled feel about him. His bearing and his tone just fit. I had to give myself a little giggle when XXXX picks up his first gun and immediately strikes a Bond pose-at the time Layer Cake was shot, Craig was probably unaware that he was soon going to become that legendary character. At any rate, Craig alone commends this flick. If you liked Lock, Stock... or Snatch, you might get something out of Layer Cake. It'd also be a pretty decent introduction to the other two, should you be looking to get someone else interested.
-59/365 down, 306/365 to go
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