Layer Cake

Superb. Vaughn is talented and serves up this great genre piece excellently. Camera tricks, great music, focus on actors... Today these are the creme de la creme of British actors and you can see that Craig put a lot of Mr. Into Bond. The story is well-thought through, has some surprises in store and, most importantly, it’s entertaining. (07/28/2013)

It has seemed for some time now that Matthew Vaughn is just trying to stylishly pick out the best tricks from his friend Guy Ritchie's golden scams, so I enjoyed watching the young or unknown faces of future or current stars more than the over-complicated plot. However, the viewer gets used to the number of characters and the turbulent changes in mood, and suddenly the fast pace seemed almost flawless to me. An incredibly precise and fresh gangster film for a debut, even though it's just a precursor to the director's abilities and potential for his future films. (08/15/2019)

The resemblance to Ritchie is palpable, but that doesn't matter. The important thing is that Matthew Vaughn can also make great films, and his debut is not just a mindless ripoff of a more famous colleague, but a very entertaining, imaginative and original crime film, of which there are never enough. It's true that all the twists and turns and plots aren't perfect and on point, but thanks to the excellent cast, the music and the almost "Ritchie-esque" direction, any ambiguities are squashed far into the background where they don't bother anyone too much. I had more than a pretty good time, I enjoyed Tom Hardy in a smaller role and Daniel Craig once again confirms that he really deserved the role of Bond as an actor. 8/10 (10/30/2012)

A modern gangster film with a decent cast and an interesting screenplay that includes a whole range of motifs and twists. Following the traditional British model, the film is literally overwhelmed with characters, making it difficult to keep track of them at first. It lacks the humor and exaggeration that, in my opinion, belong at the top levels, such as Guy Ritchie's early films. Overall impression: 80%. (11/19/2009)

Another in a series of pictures about the contemporary drug underworld that are full of dirty tricks, twists and that sort of thing. Debutant Matthew Vaughn did a good job and is helped considerably by a strong screenplay. The best thing about this is that this isn’t meant to be a spoof. In fact, quite the opposite. It is serious from start to finish. And that is good, very good, because we have seen far too many variations on “cool Richie pics". (04/21/2022)