2004's Layer Cake (or, L4yer Cake if you go by the packaging) marked the directorial debut of Matthew Vaughn, producer of Guy Ritchie's two best films, Snatch and Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels and in fact, the film was originally conceived of as a project for Mr. Madonna but he soon bowed out to take care of other commitments. Vaughn stepped into the director's chair, and wouldn't you know it, he did a pretty good job especially considering it was his first attempt at making a movie outside of the role of producer. His experience in preparing for a film production was likely a big asset in the film's success, and the future likely holds big things for Mr. Vaughn.

Layer Cake follows the story of a man who is never named (the packaging refers to him as Mr. X though no one ever addresses him by this in the film) played by Daniel Craig (of Tomb Raider). Mr. X has had a pretty successful career as a cocaine dealer but now he's decided he wants to get out of the business and do something else with his life. Things get considerably more complicated than they should for Mr. X when one of his bosses, Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) tasks Mr. X with recovering the missing drug abusing daughter of an associate of his named Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon of Open Range). To make matters worse for Mr. X, he becomes unwittingly involved in the sale of one million hits of ecstasy that happen to have been stolen from a ruthless Slavic gang who have no qualms whatsoever about executing those they find guilty of wronging them.

Continuously pulled back into the world he longs to escape from, Mr. X isn't the most original crime movie character to come along but he's still a fun guy to watch thanks for an excellent performance from the very Steve McQueen-esque Daniel Craig. Playing the role with complete coolness, Craig really stands out in this film and he plays the role so naturally and he makes it look so easy that at times it doesn't even seem like he's acting – he becomes Mr. X. The rest of the cast are decent as well, especially Gambon, but it's Craig who really gets your attention in this one, the gorgeous Sienna Miller's rather risque scene not withstanding.

Layer Cake also has the distinction of being exceptionally well photographed and slicker than grease in the cinematography department. The look of the film flows beautifully from the opening scene where Craig walks through a store stocked with cocaine right up the ending where the camera pulls away from the final events to shake his world. Ben Davis, who handled the cinematography for Miranda, the 2002 Christina Ricci vehicle, has outdone himself this time and even if you absolutely detest the story and the performances, there's no denying that Layer Cake looks great. In terms of pacing, Vaughn shows a keen eye for pacing and the movie moves along at a very good pace without having to sacrifice too much in the way of character development. Yeah, there are plenty of unanswered questions about everyone we get to know in the film but we do learn enough for the story to work and in the case of this motley crew, a little bit of mystery about their backgrounds and motives actually helps make things a little more believable considering they operate more or less in secrecy and underground.

If the film has one notable flaw, and it does, it's that there are so many characters introduced in a relatively small amount of time and through so many plot threads that not everything is completely wrapped up by the time the end credits hit. A few questions about certain supporting characters are not addressed and some of the twists come out of left field without addressing what has come before. Thankfully the main story is fleshed out quite nicely and while it does get overly complicated at times, with flashing forward and backwards in the timeline of the events that do take place in the film, enough is resolved with sufficient punch at the end of the movie that it's very much a worthwhile endeavor for those who enjoy a good crime movie, even if doesn't feel like a wholly original experience at times.

Video:

Layer Cake gets a pretty solid 2.40.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer on its domestic home video debut. The image is sharp and quite detailed, with very nice color reproduction (aside from a couple of scenes that look to have been intentionally toned down a bit for artistic reasons) and strong, deep black levels. There is some mild liner shimmering and some mild edge enhancement but thankfully these aren't major problems on this release and there aren't any issues at all with mpeg compression artifacts creeping into the image. For the most part, this is a very detailed transfer with a nice amount of depth to it, though there are a couple of spots where you might pick out some very minor motion blurring. Thankfully this isn't throughout the entire film and doesn't prove to be overly distracting. In short, Layer Cake looks good. Considering that the British set is two discs and this R1 release ports over all of the extras and combines it with the feature on one disc I was worried about compression issues, but thankfully the film comes through looking very nice indeed.