Life of Crime

FANFAIR

MATTHEW VAUGHN MAKES HIS DIRECTORIAL DEBUT

In the movies, the world is full of smart, smug, basically good-hearted criminals looking for retirement after completing one last bang-up job. But the plight of the nameless protagonist in Layer Cake, the directorial debut of British producer Matthew Vaughn (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; Snatch), is different. Our "hero" (Daniel Craig) has two last jobs to complete: locate the junkie daughter of a chum of his volatile gangster boss (Kenneth Cranham), and broker the sale of an enormous load of Ecstasy. In the process, Craig must abandon more than one of his self-styled rules of criminal conduct—designed, of course, to keep him removed from the dirty work. Consequently, he gets mixed up with an upper-class crime lord (Michael Gambon), a Serb assassin (Dragan Micanovic), a flashy third-rate crook (Jamie Foreman), a really hot girl (Sienna Miller), and lots of people talking very fast in accents of varying decipherability.

Adapted from J. J. Connolly's novel, Layer Cake owes much to the pre-Swepf Away oeuvre of director Guy Ritchie, but unlike Ritchie, Vaughn is not a mere pleasure-seeker in the realm of depravity. In one great scene, a night of uncontainable remorse conveys the emotional cost a life of crime can exact. Getting away with it, as it turns out, is the easy part; getting out is anotherthing entirely. (Rating: ★★½)

EVE EPSTEIN