A slice of neo-noir

I watched Layer Cake a while back and it's taken a few days for me to decide what I really thought about it. I'll get some of the basic things people like to know out of the way now.

It was somewhat violent. There was certainly a great deal of violence in the film, but a lot was implied and it didn't seem to me that the director ever went out of his way to try and make an impression with some gory twist or over-the-top moment. A great deal of it adhered to the dictum, most famously associated with Hitchcock, that what you let the audience imagine will be far more effective than anything you actually show them.

The language was profane. This was a British film, after all, and they have become a lot more coarse culturally than the US is. There are enough crudities to choke a moderately-sized horse.

There wasn't much sex. There are few brief scenes shown where the camera pans past things without lingering that are rather explicit. I found that I was able to fast forward through things with ease. There is one scene in a hotel room (you'll know what it is when you get there) where it is important to know what is said at the conclusion of it, but if you can still get audio at 2x speed the way I can, you can probably make it through without offending your eyes overmuch.

Okay, more detailed thoughts and some minor spoilers after the jump.

This movie was certainly a noir film in the grand tradition of noir. It was twisted, convoluted, the hero was more anti- and there are strong detective elements even if all the characters are on the wrong side of the law. I won't give away the ending, but I will say that it will not surprise anyone who is a devotee of the noir genre.

On the whole, I liked it. I was able to cheer for the protagonist in a limited way and I was kept entertained and interested in what was happening both for the sake of the character and the plot. The whole was believable with only minor suspensions of disbelief and was pretty internally consistent.

I'm still not a big fan of Daniel Craig, but I think he did a reasonable job. Also, if you only know Michael Gambon from his turn as Dumbledore, then it will totally blow your mind to hear him swearing up a storm as a villain in this movie.