You can never plan a race in detail. Firstly because the first jobs are not going to be exactly what you have in mind, and secondly because you can end up finding unconventional ways to get to iconic roles or roles that in theory require a more conventional path. In other words, you never quite know which movie is going to help you take the next step.
That is why it is a somewhat futile exercise to try to find the next James Bond in actors or films that a priori are paving the way to be. Except for cases like Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan, who were already in orbit before finally getting the commission, people like Daniel Craig were surprise elections coming out of the project a priori inappropriate as an audition for 007. In his case, the film was ‘Layer Cake: Organized Crime’, a powerful mafia film available on Netflix.
The mafia spiral
Producer Barbara Broccoli acknowledged that this film was the one that set her sights on Craig and seriously considered him for the role of Bond after Brosnan’s departure. It is surprising, because the film is situated almost at the antipodes of Bond both by gender and by rogue charisma. And his director, Matthew Vaughn, would make his own anti-007 saga with ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ and its sequels and prequels.
Craig plays a man with no name here. But he is not a reluctant vigilante like those of the West, but an efficient and well-established cocaine dealer who from a very young age had clear his objectives and is now ready to turn the page. It will not be so easy for him, because his boss will try to trick him into one last job that he will start a downward spiral out of control.
The film shows us how well he has learned the rules of mafia movies like Martin Scorsese’s. It offers us an idyllic first look at this established and well-defined world that will soon spiral out of control and become a walk through hell for its protagonist. Of course, it is responsible for coating everything with a distinctively British charisma (not distinguished, we already know how they really spend them).
‘Layer Cake’: well shot
What saves her from definitely falling into the channeling that could have become unbearable was a last-minute drop. Guy Ritchie, who had previously worked with Vaugh on projects like ‘Lock & Stock’ and ‘Snatch. Pigs and Diamonds’, dropped out of the project and Vaugh launched his own career as a director, still somewhat meticulous and well measured before giving into the (otherwise amusing) ‘Kingsman’ rampage.
There are not so many signs of the Bond of the Craig stage in this film, at most a certain rawness that has been more sifted in these films, so focusing the viewing there may be a mistake. If it is enough to show the aura of a character actor that Daniel has always distilled, more than that of a conventional star leading actor, doing a devastating job that elevates a great movie and recommended.