I watched Layer Cake tonight on DVD only to read online afterwards that the star of that film, Daniel Craig, had been picked on Friday to be the new James Bond.
Initially, he seems an odd choice for an action hero or Bond, with his blank, broad-featured face and thinning blonde hair not styled in any particularly foppish way. But then you notice he has blue eyes that can cut diamonds and speaks in a British tone that’s the vocal equivalent of something that would taste sweet, rich and creamy when spread on toast. The obligatory shirtless scene offers a fine preview to ladies and gentlemen of a certain persuasion, as it’s a chest that will likely be showcased often in the Bond role, as is required.
As for Layer Cake, aside from having a daft title and no bankable American stars, it’s a shame that it’s a not-too-bad British crime drama, because any such film will inevitably get compared, derisively or otherwise, to Guy Ritchie’s work. In fact, Layer Cake is billed not only as “from the producers of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” but Ritchie himself was reportedly on-board to direct at one point.
Then you’ve got the cutesy pseudonyms the characters are required to have by Richie’s Law, like Duke, Slasher, Clarkie, Slavo and Kinky, and the Richie-requisite crazy camerawork, including seamless transitions from one scene to another via a zoom, shots up sides of buildings, from helecopters and up through the bottom of a glass-topped table. Also, a hip soundtrack mixing electronica with British pop new and old (Joe Cocker, Starsailor, XTC, the Cult) and the necessarily Ironic Track (the cheerfully woeful “Ordinary World” by Duran Duran, which plays as one character is beaten into a coma.)
As the film opens, Craig’s unnamed character is sitting pretty as a cocaine-trade middleman, one with a very careful and composed attitude toward his job. As he describes the hierarchy of the trade, we’re introduced to the muscle, the lackeys, the young turks, the kingpin, the loose cannons and the users. Craig announces his intentions to get out of the racket, but these plans rapidly dissolve as he’s ensnared in a complicated mission to retrieve a million stolen ecstasy pills. There’s crosses and double-crosses, deals and hits gone wrong. Craig gets the crap beat out of him by one of his own men, then sits down with him afterwards for a whiskey.
All said, an entertaining popcorn flick. But will Craig end up a Lazenby or a Connery? We’ll just have to wait next year for Casino Royale.