Flick is better than 'XXX'

We all want to know what it’s like to be on top — and Daniel Craig’s character in “Layer Cake” is no exception.

The twist-laden film begins with familiar troubled-protagonist narration, in which Craig — the film never reveals his character’s name; he’s credited only as XXXX — tells the audience all the rules one must follow in order to stay within the upper echelons of the cocaine business.

He ends up breaking most of them.

XXXX is content with the wealth he has accumulated and has no desire to climb to the top. He just wants to get out of the business.

But XXXX is too good to leave — or so his boss Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) tells him.

XXXX tries to keep a low profile, but it all starts to unravel with one seemingly simple favor his boss asks of him.

XXXX is on a mission to find and deliver a fellow drug kingpin’s daughter, who has become addicted to “the white stuff” and has disappeared with her boyfriend.

At first, this setup appears to be the film’s plot: “XXXX sets off on a journey to find the daughter of a drug lord and encounters perils, obstacles and near death along the way.”

But the search for the girl becomes just one item on a checklist of tasks and trials. Seedy drug king The Duke (Jamie Foreman) and his ecstasy pills enter the picture, proving why XXXX never deals in drugs other than cocaine.

Soon the film has introduced so many subplots, the viewer is hard-pressed to keep up with everything.

Director Matthew Vaughn (producer of “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch,” and a cohort of Guy Ritchie) seems to be throwing in stories solely for the sake of setting up a few surprises and twists.

But by the end, Vaughn ties them up well. The various plots serve to reveal the mounting stress and growing complexity in XXXX’s previously simple, cut-and-dry world. In an industry as legitimate as the drug trade, XXXX doesn’t know whom he can trust.

The film primarily works as a psychological analysis of XXXX and his being drawn into the violent, complicated side of the drug trade that comes with accumulating power.

The film’s writing lends trite, obvious advice to XXXX (J.J. Connolly penned the film and the book by the same title) — “Being a good businessman means being a good middleman.”

But British gem Michael Gambon gives the line the edge it needs.

“Layer Cake” avoids becoming just another account of the drug industry. Instead it becomes just another character study of a man who has one foot in and one foot outside of crime.

In keeping with the movie’s banal theme, Vaughn’s direction is straight out of Film 101. He also plays it pretty safe his first time around, but he’s got potential.

Let him gain a little clout in Hollywood, and we’ll see what he can do.

While his film offers stylish direction, a fine cast and a well-utilized soundtrack — juxtaposing Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World” with violence helps the song maintain its pertinence to the film without becoming cliche — it fails to bring anything new to the gangster-movie genre.

The film looks nice and sounds good, but it lacks the substance to back it all up.

Contact the A&E Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.