Layer Cake features all the doublecrosses, grasses and reversals of fortune that come as standard to the genre, but it is lifted by the uniformly excellent cast, the snide intelligence of the script, and the effortless pace of Vaughn's direction.

| Dec 27, 2017

There's a proper lived-in believability about Layer Cake's depiction of how the worlds of the rich, the criminal and the criminally rich intersect.

| Jul 29, 2008

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 1, 2006

I like Layer Cake a lot.

Full Review | Jun 20, 2005

The film is lamentably short of narrative coherence.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 10, 2005

The intricate thing dodges and feints and twists this way and turns that way until, by the time of the alleged resolution, we've lost our bearings completely.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 10, 2005

A contemporary gangster film that both looks and feels like a Britnoir classic filtered through the Jam's bang-on sense of style.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 5, 2005

It has more heft than the Ritchie movies.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Jun 2, 2005

A masterly, intricately plotted crime story.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 2, 2005

It's a stylish and classic gangster saga about the clashing of rival empires, where the only thing worse than the killer before you is the killer waiting behind him.

| May 27, 2005

An exercise in high style, high octane and low-key suaveness.

| May 27, 2005

The film's a diverting enough 105 minutes, with a few surprises in store.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 27, 2005

A gangster film, despite what its title suggests, that ranks with the best of the genre.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | May 27, 2005

Bloody good fun a great deal of the time. Love the accents. Love the guns. Bang-bang.

Full Review | Original Score: B | May 27, 2005

May be a worthy successor to a busy genre, but it is not an inventive inheritor.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 27, 2005

As good as the story and direction may be, much of the film's success is up to Daniel Craig.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 27, 2005

Layer Cake has sizzle, but it also offers plenty of steak.

| Original Score: A- | May 26, 2005

The special appeal of Layer Cake derives from its efficient, gripping story and from the personality of the unnamed protagonist.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 20, 2005

A propulsive drug-world movie that dutifully covers similar ground in and around London: guns, chicks, inventive use of the F word, expensive-looking locations, designer stuff, and so on.

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 20, 2005

Craig is fascinating here as a criminal who is very smart, and finds that is not an advantage because while you might be able to figure out what another smart person is about to do, dumbos like the men he works for are likely to do anything.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 20, 2005