What happens when you take a really good movie like Snatch, and you remove the wit of Guy Ritchie? A blog entry by me.
I've been waiting for Graham to bring me in a CD containing L4YERCAKE, but I get fed up waiting, so I just went and rented the movie myself. Below is my thoughts.
So what is L4YERCAKE? On the front, it's another movie like Snatch. It's gritty. It's witty. It's got underworld. It has stone cold characters that are able to spew witty lines whilst facing the barrel of their nemesis' gun.
That's what the cover of the DVD will tell you. You want to know what it is really? Putty's sex move in Seinfeld after Jerry forbids him from using his own move. It's an assload of fanfare, and nothing else.
L4YERCAKE sucks on so many levels that it's difficult to articulate them all, but I'm going to try, and part of the reason for that is that it's the first time I've been motivated enough to actually write in my blog. Turns out that anger and bile are stronger motivators than happiness and my cat's latest antic.
Anyhow, starting from the beginning, let's dissect L4YERCAKE. It starts out strong - it's got a keen soundtrack, and scenes set just like you'd expect from a really well-thought out Guy Ritchie movie. For some background, I think Guy Ritchie, when he puts his head to something, is brilliant. If you didn't like Snatch, I don't care about your opinion, and I think you suck. If you did, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. L4YERCAKE starts out giving you exactly what you want. Then it blows its shitty premature wad and leaves you wondering what the hell is happening. The main character is as stone-faced and calm as Turkish is from Snatch, but without any of the charisma or humour. The director of L4YERCAKE has totally missed the fact that Jason Statham's character from Snatch has personality. He has wit. His totally ice-berg-like stillness belies an intelligent, calculating, devious, and charismatic character. The main character of L4YERCAKE (I can't even remember his name, he's so non-descript) does none of this.
You get to see a load of actors, all of which you kind of remember from previous films, none of which dazzled you - you get Soap from Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels you get that crazy guy from Mean Machine that set the bomb in Danny Mean's locker, and a bunch of other actors you couldn't really give a shit about, because none of them have ever really done anything to make you sit up and take notice. Acting beside these guys, you've got a bunch of people that you'd swear you've seen in other movies, because they're styled directly from the characters that Guy Ritchie has thought up. Did you like Brick Top? Me too! He was calm. He had the worst teeth I've seen in ever, and he seemed to take pride in that. He'd smash your teeth out and feed you to pigs! What's not to like? Surprise surprise, there's a guy in this movie that fills the same roll, except he has none of the class that Alan Ford brings, and his teeth are fine.
What if we add three more actors that simultaneously try to fill the same role? Droopy, wrinkly faces, none of which impart the same singular menacing quality that Alan Ford does? That's right, NOTHING. This is the difference between a great actor and an actor that you hired for beer money. Delivering lines without showing emotion isn't as easy as most of these director's seem to think it is. Wes Craven and whoever dropped this steaming deuce onto a DVD haven't figured this out. There's a difference between the look on someone's face when you film a bad actor staring straight ahead and when you film a good actor doing the same thing.
Sometimes these actors do things that we're meant to believe are gritty, like hitting someone in the head with a hammer, but they do it with such a level of nonchalance that it's absolutely impossible to believe that it's anything but an actor playing his role. That really seems to be the main failing point of this movie - there is literally no point throughout the movie where it's possible to feel that any of the events are actually real. The dialogue is polished to the point of being contrived, as are every single action the characters carry out. Everything about this movie is contrived, and that's the opposite of what you want to see in a movie like this. Worst yet, when it's not contrived, it's ridiculous. How about dialogue like this: "How do I know you're not wearing a wire?" "Well, I'm not" "Well, I guess we'll have to trust each other". WTF?? Search that bitch! You've got a huge gun and bodyguards! You don't have to trust him.
It makes me mad that a lot of people will try and rationalize the things that suck about this movie, and mad that the producers of this movie thought they could blatantly rip off Guy Ritchie's original directing and sell it to the public succesfully. It makes me even angrier knowing that the producer's are right, because for every person like me, there's at least ten that thought this movie was dark, gritty, and daring. Screw them, I hate those people.
Here's the most important point of this movie. People that watch it and tell you they liked it will typically fall into one of two camps. They either thought the movie was all around great, or they thought the shooting and cinematography was great. I put cinematography into quotes, because I hate that word, and because it seems to be the latest easy way for someone to sound like they have good taste (Oh my god, it had the best cinematography. Also, I hate Bush! I'm smart right?). However, a good movie, cinematography does not make. L4YERCAKE does have excellent cinematography. It's well shot, uses excellent angles and effects. It even almost generates feelings of suspense using the right camera shots, and imparts qualities of distance, proximity and franticity (is that a word?). That doesn't make this movie good. This doesn't even make the movie worth watching once.
If you like dark, gritty, underworld movies, do yourself a favour and avoid L4YERCAKE like that weird bird flu - go and watch Boondock Saints, Snatch, and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Rent Memento, Following, and Snow Falling on Cedars, and see what good cinematography mixed with good acting can actually produce. This movie is both boring and polished at the same time - the best analogy I can think of is Ocean's Twelve - if you get off watching actor's on screen that look pretty and spout lines with a cardboard technique matching that of the dialogue in A Life Aquatic, this is the movie for you. If not, spend the next ten weeks practicing the cyclone spin-kick, and then use it on people that tell you they liked this movie.
