LAYER CAKE
The name's Bond, James Bond. Well...not yet, but when the Bond TPTB decided to hire Daniel Craig for the role of 007 they'd probably been watching this film before hand.
Heck before I'd managed to catch Layer Cake, I hadn't even had any dealings with Craig as an actor, having never gotten into stuff like "Our Friends in the North". I came in more interested in the connections to "Lock Stock" and "Snatch" than anything else...
...and found that Layer Cake isn't either of them. Doesn't have the laugh factor of the Guy Ritchie movies for one. Craig plays some nameless up and coming drug dealer who gets hired by one of the big timers to track down his daughter and do a deal in Holland. That's just for starters.
Paired up with his own hardman Morty and later roping in Irishman Gene(Colm Meany) the guy soon winds up having to match up against everyone from his former boss to Serbian psychos while looking for the promise of a way out of his dodgy trade.
The result is a fast pace and a twisted plot with the general uncertainty of whether he'll be allowed to break out. The twist at the end is slightly stupid and unceccersay but overall, this film is certainly a new type of British classic.
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