GAMES: GameSpot | GameFAQs MUSIC: Last.fm | MP3.com MOVIES: Metacritic | Movietome TV: TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games TV

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 



Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Layer Cake
Sony Pictures Classics

Layer Cake reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 73 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
7.6 out of 10
based on 30 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 34 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for strong brutal violence, sexuality, nudity, pervasive language and drug use

Starring Daniel Craig, Colm Meaney, Sienna Miller, Michael Gambon, Jamie Foreman, Kenneth Cranham, and George Harris

A riveting thriller set in the drug underworld of the UK. (Sony Pictures Classics)


GENRE(S): Action  |  Crime  |  Foreign  |  Suspense/Thriller  
WRITTEN BY: J.J. Connolly  
DIRECTED BY: Matthew Vaughn  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: August 23, 2005 
Theatrical: May 13, 2005 
RUNNING TIME: 105 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: UK 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Fast, convulsive, and densely exciting new British gangster thriller.
Read Full Review
88
Chicago Tribune Allison Benedikt
Don't let the fast-and-loose vibe fool you: Right up to its operatic finale, this is one tight one last job.
Read Full Review
88
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
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.
Read Full Review
88
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Things get a little tricky by the end, but it's the sort of trickery that's immensely satisfying.
Read Full Review
88
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Doesn't reveal all its layers until you've taken the last bite.
Read Full Review
80
Washington Post Desson Thomson
It's a stylish and classic gangster saga about the clashing of rival empires.
Read Full Review
80
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
The director Vaughn has a flair not merely for action and ambiance but also for character.
Read Full Review
80
Time Richard Schickel
Layer Cake is a treat--especially if your taste in desserts is devil's food.
Read Full Review
80
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
A colorful cast whose combined energy lifts the story off the ground.
Read Full Review
80
The New York Times Manohla Dargis
The newest in British gangland entertainment and the tastiest in years.
Read Full Review
80
The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett
Smartly put together, with interesting characters and caustic wit.
Read Full Review
80
Variety Leslie Felperin
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.
Read Full Review
78
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Layer Cake is suffused with a stately sense of menace and a sort of doomed existential suave.
Read Full Review
75
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Cheeky, brass-knuckles British crime film.
Read Full Review
75
Miami Herald Peter Debruge
It's like "Lock, Stock" as filtered through the mind of David Mamet, with Craig as the suave middleman holding it all together.
Read Full Review
75
USA Today Mike Clark
There's a lot here to feed crime-fiction enthusiasts.
Read Full Review
75
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
A crime drama in a special class.
Read Full Review
75
New York Post Kyle Smith
This is a smart, vivid, thrillingly real gangster picture that nevertheless resembles many others.
Read Full Review
75
Premiere Glenn Kenny
It’s hilarious, and genuinely cool.
Read Full Review
75
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Laced with flashbacks and stylistic tics, but it never loses its forward momentum, and to the last shot, it avoids predictability.
Read Full Review
70
Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust
A sleek, effective entertainment that is a refreshing respite from the slick emptiness of recent American crime dramas.
Read Full Review
70
Film Threat Chris Barsanti
The writing is crisp and deeply layered, and the filmmakers gave themselves a rich array of actors to work with.
Read Full Review
70
The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
The always-dependable and chameleon-like Craig has the chops and substance for that kind of film, but Vaughn prefers to keep matters brisk and superficial.
Read Full Review
70
Dallas Observer Bill Gallo
By the end, you may be exhausted by the effort of trying to unravel the thing, but you may also be taken by the power of its spell. This is a movie that compels you to watch.
Read Full Review
60
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The result is so intoxicating, it hardly matters that you've heard it all before.
Read Full Review
58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
Craig's got the stuff but the ending of this cake is soggy for its protagonist and audience.
Read Full Review
58
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Lively, cheeky, dense and, ultimately, too flip, clever and torturously twisted to be fully engrossing.
Read Full Review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
One of those crime flicks besotted with its own plot.
Read Full Review
50
Boston Globe Wesley Morris
A lot of the problem is that the picture's protagonist is both naive and foul.
Read Full Review
50
Village Voice Michael Atkinson
What's abundantly clear is how far this kind of moviemaking has come from any knowledge of real criminal life; it's a geek's ineffectual daydream of mayhem.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 34 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jack T. gave it a10:
The Greatest Gangster Thriller I have Ever Seen

Adam C. gave it a10:
too good

Angela B. gave it an8:
Daniel Craig was great, and I wanted to see his work before James Bond. Good writing and dialogue, but I have seen much of the style before. Nonethess, it was quite interesting, and I am glad I watched it.

Taylor S. gave it a7:
It would have been a lot better if they connected the dots more and effectively concluded some of the points and scenes they were trying to accent.

Mark S. gave it a7:
This was pretty good. The lead actor was very good. But I didn't enjoy this nearly as much as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels or as much as Snatch. And the very end made the movie almost pointless, it angered me.

House gave it an8:
Like a great rock song, Layer Cake hooks you early and never disappoints, rocking you until the final power chord of an ending. Daniel Craig is sensational supported by a cast that once again proves the UK has the best characer actors in the world.

Zigmund Z. gave it a6:
Failed to grab me in the first ten minutes, which is always a bad sign. Scorsese or Tarantino wannabe. Craig is excellent, but, my God, we've seen this before, done much better. Film has a feel of trying really hard to be outrageous and irreverantly shocking, but just comes off as being mundane and boring. Watch Trainspotting or Reservoir Dogs again, you'll be better off.

Read more user comments...

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

Popular on CBS sites: iPhone 3G | Fantasy Football | Moneywatch | Antivirus Software | Recipes | E3 2009

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use