With This Movie, Matthew Vaughn Took Guy Ritchie’s Style and Improved on It

In the same way that the films of Quentin Tarantino inspired countless American crime films that attempted to replicate his unique style, the work of Guy Ritchie had a similarly influential effect on the development of modern British crime cinema. With their snappy dialogue, inventive editing techniques, off-kilter music choices, and dark humor, Ritchie’s early gangster films Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels felt like a breath of fresh air compared to the self-serious mob movies of the era. Ritchie’s films grew so popular that many other filmmakers tried to craft similarly stylized genre films, but few were able to find the strange blend of brutality and irreverence that Ritchie had mastered. However, the ambitious young filmmaker Matthew Vaughn proved himself worthy of being Ritchie’s heir apparent with his standout directorial debut, Layer Cake. While it shared stylistic and thematic parallels with Ritchie’s films, Layer Cake was a breakthrough film that established Vaughn’s unique voice as an artist.

What Is ‘Layer Cake’ About?

Set within the world of London’s underground cocaine smuggling business, Layer Cake follows an unnamed protagonist, who is only obliquely referred to as XXXX (Daniel Craig). Although XXXX has seen his fair share of violence and anarchy as a result of his long-standing career as a drug distributor, he has finally set his sights on retirement, planning to put his criminal ways behind him. Unfortunately, XXXX’s planned exit from London’s violent underworld goes awry when the mob boss Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranaham) assigns him to track down a fugitive and oversee a shipment. Layer Cake analyzes the all-consuming nature of the criminal lifestyle through the exit barriers XXXX faces; while it features some of the same hyperkinetic editing that Ritchie perfected with Snatch, Layer Cake is more ambitious in its thematic analysis.

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While Ritchie’s films have done a great job at satirizing the gangster lifestyle, Layer Cake offers a thorough examination of how drug rings operate thanks to XXXX’s perspective. Craig delivers voice-overs that explain how each character that he interacts with plays a role in the shipment, distribution, and usage of illegal drugs. This gives attention to even the most seemingly insignificant characters, as Vaughn gives a specific reason why they need to be included in the story. Additionally, the voice-over allows Vaughn to dispense with expositional information by shedding insight into how XXXX views his profession; it’s evident that, despite his enthusiasm for leaving this world behind him, XXXX earned his profession for a reason. Craig shines in one of the early roles that certainly helped him to earn the part of James Bond two years later in Casino Royale.

While the characters in Ritchie’s films are often there for comedic relief, Layer Cake succeeds in giving an emotionally dynamic journey for its protagonist. Craig’s calm, collected performance embodies the classical movie star charisma of Steve McQueen or John Wayne; as XXXX has taken years to craft a persona that shows no signs of vulnerability. Rather than lionizing his toxic masculinity, Layer Cake shows how frustrated XXXX has become with the person that he’s turned into. He’s created a version of himself that has no capacity for emotion, which explains why he is so desperate to escape from the business that has dominated his life.

‘Layer Cake’ Is a Deep Examination of the London Underground Crime World

Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels stand out among Ritchie’s filmography because of their lack of narrative momentum; rather than hyper-fixating on one key heist or standoff, the film feels like anthologies that showcase different aspects of the criminal world. However, Layer Cake uses each of XXXX’s missions to examine the consequences of his industry, which ties the various interconnected segments into the progression of his character arc. It gives these scenes a dual value; they reveal an aspect of the larger network of criminals at play, but they also test XXXX’s abilities in a way that advances his maturation.

XXXX’s mission to find Charlie (Nathalie Lunghi), a young drug-addicted teenager, shows the lasting ramifications that smuggling has to ruin families’ livelihoods. While many crime films treat drugs themselves as merely a commodity, Layer Cake offers a sensitive perspective on the perils of addiction. A revelation later on that Charlie’s father, Eddie Temple (the late great Michael Gambon), is a crime lord with a personal vendetta against Price makes the situation even more heartbreaking; despite her personal struggles, Charlie has become a pawn within her father’s scheme to outmaneuver his rival.

Similarly, XXXX’s assignment to help transport ecstasy tablets for a dealer known as “the Duke” (Jamie Foreman) goes awry when he discovers an underlying conflict with Serbian war criminals who claim the pills are stolen. By showing that any and all drug deals are bound to break down into a conflict over money, Layer Cake shows the inherent violence within XXXX’s trade. The specificity that Vaughn shows within these shootout sequences proves why he is one of the directors ruling the action genre right now.

‘Layer Cake’ Is an Outlier Within Matthew Vaughn’s Work

While the film’s success granted him new freedoms as a storyteller, Layer Cake is much more sincere and serious compared to Vaughn’s other projects. Vaughn’s 2010 comic book film Kick-Ass and his recurring Kingsman franchise were highly satirical in their approach, drawing direct comparisons to other genre films. However, Layer Cake, although similar to Guy Richie’s style, to Vaughn’s more recent work because it doesn’t aim to make any sort of commentary on the crime genre as a whole. It is a beast entirely its own. While there are elements of humor in Layer Cake much like his other films, it does not require its viewer to have any previously established knowledge of other films.

Although he has spent the past few years of his career (outside of the Kingsman franchise) dabbling in adaptations with the superhero prequel X-Men: First Class and the Neil Gaiman adaptation Stardust, it appears that Vaughn has returned to working on completely original material. Vaughn’s upcoming spy thriller Argylle is a bold reinvention of spy movie mythology. Although it’s exciting to see Vaughn take novel approaches to time-honored properties, the success of Layer Cake suggests he’s a filmmaker best suited to tell his own stories.

Layer Cake is available to rent on Amazon.

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