Sometimes being sick is a blessing.
Monday I was feeling a bit ill; typical soar throat and congested sinuses, the sort of summer cold that bangs away at your head with such throbbing persistence that attempting any sort of logical, cohesive thought is like getting a person with A.D.D. to sit through 2001: A Space Odyssey. I knew I’d be useless at work, so I stayed home and fired up the television set.
Running through movie channels I happened upon a film called Layer Cake. It starred Daniel Craig as a smart middle-man in the UK drug business, having to pull off one last mission for his boss before slipping away into retirement. Craig is, in case you don’t know, the fella who will be sporting the black suit and tie as the next James Bond. That alone was enough reason for me to stop channel surfing and watch the movie, but I also heard that the Layer Cake was really good. Ebert almost gave it four stars; I had to see what it was about.
The film is brilliant, and Craig is superb. I was totally floored. It’s an incredibly smart film; it reminded me of Mel Gibson’s Payback, only British. It has the same menacing tone and underworld setting, the same shady characters, and the same convoluted, yet logical, plot. The film takes enough twists and turns that we’re never really certain of anyone’s motives, and just when it seems like we know what’s coming next, another curveball is thrown at us. Even the ending is a surprise, but not without logic. And that’s partially what is great about the film – there is logic to every piece of it, and watching it unfold is like watching a complex piece of clockwork click into place, one step at a time, until everything makes sense.
When Daniel Craig was announced as the next James Bond I was skeptical, and there was a huge uproar on the internet. He isn’t dark haired, for one, and he was a relative unknown. But after seeing him in Layer Cake I’m totally convinced he could be an excellent Bond, maybe the best since Roger Moore. If the movie is a flop it won’t be because of Daniel Craig. He’s clearly capable of assuming the lead role, and Layer Cake showed that. If there’s a problem with the next James Bond film it will be with the writing and directing, just as it has been for the past decade.
Do yourself a favor though, and add Layer Cake to your NetFlix queue.