April 22nd, 2008

I need to work on the quality of my titles. Anyway, Layer Cake.

Trendy British crime films typically exhibit a stylish wit that makes our industry seem pedestrian and formulaic, which of course it kind of is. Watch Layer Cake and you'll see what I mean. You're instantaneously drawn in. It takes five seconds.

Two vaguely similar films come to mind--Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels--but they're a little less serious and more quirky, and can be summarized thusly:

Bloke #1: Bollocks?
Bloke #2: Bollocks.
Bloke #3: Shite, watch out for that chain of events!

Layer Cake is somewhat darker and more dramatic, part of which can be attributed to Daniel Craig, who possesses probably the most icy, cold-blooded stare in all of acting. Casting the man as James Bond required transforming the franchise from absurd action sequences and penis jokes to relatively serious, dramatic brutality. That's not a coincidence. He looks like he'd execute you for a cigarette, which he would then smoke impassively in the face of danger.

Also of note: Sienna Miller, the film's somewhat halfhearted love interest, comes off as an intelligent Jessica Simpson. Contradiction of terms, you say? "Shut up," you say? Well, hear me out.

Yeah, so she only has like four lines. Yes, she's a promiscuous airhead. But she has an English accent. She makes us all sound like slurring Yankee louts. It might be perfunctory and baseless, but it's like slapping glasses and a lab coat on a hobo; people are still going to assume he's an unkempt genius. At least until he speaks. Unless he has an English accent.

This film isn't perfect. It's a little unbelievable at times, which works in a goofy Guy Ritchie setting but feels somewhat out of place here. Nonetheless, when they're not giggling over transvestite jokes or filming their celebrities naked, the British have always had the edge over us for wit.

http://www.simulacri.com/DanielCraigQuiz.jpg