List Price: $19.94 Our Price: $10.47YOU SAVE $9.47!
Buy it
DVD Layer Cake (Widescreen Special Edition)
As its title suggests, Layer Cake is a crime thriller that cuts into several levels of its treacherous criminal underworld. The title is actually one character's definition of the drug-trade hierarchy, but it's also an apt metaphor for the separate layers of deception, death, and betrayal experienced by the film's unnamed protagonist, a cocaine traffic middle-man played with smooth appeal by Daniel Craig (rumored at the time of this film's release to be on the short list for consideration as the next James Bond). Listed in the credits only as "XXXX," the character is trapped into doing a favor for his volatile boss, only to have tables turned by his boss's boss (Michael Gambon) in a twisting plot involving a stolen shipment of Ecstasy, a missing girl, duplicitous dealers, murderous Serbian gangsters, and a variety of lowlifes with their own deadly agendas. As adapted by J.J. Connolly (from his own novel) and directed by Matthew Vaughan (who earned his genre chops as producer of Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch), Layer Cake improves upon those earlier British gangland hits with assured pacing, intelligent plotting, and an admirable emphasis on plot-moving dialogue over routine action. Sure, it's violent (that's to be expected) and not always involving, but it's smarter than most thrillers, and Vaughan's directorial debut has a confident style that's flashy without being flamboyant. This could be the start of an impressive career. --Jeff Shannon
Review(s): DVD Layer Cake (Widescreen Special Edition)
"Don't get high..."
Well, with this one - I had high expectation and I really enjoyed it. Non-hollywood style, nice soundtrack, great dialogs, great acting. Maybe I am partial to non-us movies, but this one definitely stands out.
I would totally recommend it. One can say it promotes drug business or so, but people are the ones who make decisions, not pills. That is up to them to decide whether to be "happy now - stupid later..."
Great movie!
Entertaining Genre Film
This movie follows the same formula that Guy Ritchie used successfully in "Snatch" and "Lock, Stock...." It's a British gangter film filled with numerous plot twists, humor, and a good deal of violence. Just for good measure, first time director Matthew Vaughn throws in a bit of sex appeal by adding Sienna Miller to the cast.
If you found this movie, chances are you were looking for something like "Snatch," or you were looking for a movie featuring the new James Bond, Daniel Craig. You get plenty of time to examine Craig in this movie--using a gun, flirting with ladies, acting cool, and doing other Bond like things, but this is not a Bond movie. It contains sex, drugs, and violence--and to a certain extent it glamorizes all three, so if that's not your cup of tea you probably shouldn't spend your time on this one.
On the other hand, if you like quirky, funny action movies that stand apart from the mainstream, then this one might interest you. It's not always perfect, but it certainly has enough to make it worth while.
"You'd give an aspirin a headache!"
I really don't like Daniel Craig. I really don't think he's gonna make a good Bond. But what do I know, that's just my opinion. I'm quite proud to say that I've never seen a Bond film, and don't plan to either. But this is supposedly the film that won Daniel the Bond role. How, I have no idea. I don't like the way he parts his hair, I don't like his accent, I don't like the way he looks, shall I continue with that or the review of the film?
I'm really not keen on the idea that Layer Cake seems to glamourise drugs. It's not big and it's not clever, and all the characters in this film are very shallow. There are a couple of familiar British faces: Michael Gambon taking a huge step away from his Professor Dumbledore character; Burn Gorman (who plays Gazza) who appears in the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood and some guy who's been in Brookside & Casualty.
Why oh why is Sienna Millar splashed all over the cover? There's another actress who I can't stand! What is she famous for exactly? Being the girlfriend of Jude Law? Taking him back after he cheated? Exactly. She has maximum of three lines of dialogue in this film, why she gets her face on the cover is beyond me. And her whole career seems to be based on this and Alfie. She does nothing, apart from looking really dumb when she dances (complete with cigarette in mouth, very attractive), wear some lingerie, and that's about it! Oh, and she appears right at the very end. How much did she get paid for that?
What stopped this film from being a one-star review was the surprising ending. I think I jumped, I totally wasn't expecting what happened at the end to happen. But the whole film was very average in my opinion. There's absolutely nothing outstanding about it and seeing Daniel Craig severely beaten up, no matter how much I can't stand the guy, isn't pretty. I wouldn't recommend this film. But it was alright if you like that kinda thing.
Related DVD's Layer Cake (Widescreen Special Edition)
In the realm of revenge thrillers, you'd be hard pressed to find more ultra-violent vengeance and psycho thrills than in the creepy story of Oldboy. This Korean import made a pop splash at the Cannes Film Festival and during its limited theatrical run thanks to the imprimatur of Quentin Tarantino, who raved about it and its visionary director, Chan-wook Park, to anyone who would listen. It's easy to see why QT fell in love with the grindhouse attitude, fast-paced action, violent imagery, and icy-black humor, but it's a disservice to think of Oldboy as another Tarantino homage or knockoff. The darkly existential undercurrent in the themes that Oldboy traces over its life-long narrative arc is much more complex and deeply disturbing than anything of its kind. The... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Chan-wook Park DVD Release Date: Released the 14 November 2006 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $39.95 Your Price: $29.49YOU SAVE $10.46!
Buy it
The two-disc edition of Sin City easily makes the earlier single-disc theatrical-cut release obsolete by including the regular theatrical cut on the first disc, recutting the movie into four extended segments on the second disc (separated by story line), then piling on an impressive load of bonus features. But there's a catch. Billed as "Recut, Extended, Unrated," with "over 20 minutes" of new footage, the new set's four separate stories are extended by only about 6.5 total minutes of movie action (see details below in "What's New"); the rest of the added running time is the splashy new title shots (named by the title of the story or book) and the four minutes of credits that run at the end of each segment. Each addition makes the movie even closer to the comic books, and these... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Frank Miller (II) - Robert Rodriguez DVD Release Date: Released the 13 December 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $39.99 Your Price: $29.99YOU SAVE $10!
Buy it
Cockney boys Tom, Soap, Eddie, and Bacon are in a bind; they owe seedy criminal and porn king "Hatchet" Harry a sizable amount of cash after Eddie loses half a million in a rigged game of poker. Hot on their tails is a thug named Big Chris who intends to send them all to the hospital if they don't come up with the cash in the allotted time. Add into the mix an incompetent set of ganja cultivators, two dimwitted robbers, a "madman" with an afro, and a ruthless band of drug dealers and you have an astonishing movie called Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Before the boys can blink, they are caught up in a labyrinth of double-crosses that lead to a multitude of dead bodies, copious amounts of drugs, and two antique rifles.
With Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson as a pair of brazen wedding crashers, this buddy/romantic comedy milks a few big laughs from its foolproof premise. Under the direction of David Dobkin (who previously worked with Wilson on Shanghai Knights), the movie ranges from bawdy romp to mushy romance, and that tonal identity crisis curtails the overall hilarity. But when the well-teamed costars are firing on all pistons with fast-paced dialogue and manic situations, belly laughs are delivered at a steady clip. Things get complicated when the guys infiltrate the family of the Treasury Secretary (Christopher Walken), resulting in a romantic pair-off between Vaughn and the congressman's oversexed daughter Gloria (Isla Fisher) while Wilson sincerely woos another daughter, Claire (Rachel... More Info about this DVD Director(s): David Dobkin DVD Release Date: Released the 03 January 2006 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.98 Your Price: $14.99YOU SAVE $4.99!
Buy it
Movie studios, by and large, avoid controversial subjects like race the way you might avoid a hive of angry bees. So it's remarkable that Crash even got made; that it's a rich, intelligent, and moving exploration of the interlocking lives of a dozen Los Angeles residents--black, white, latino, Asian, and Persian--is downright amazing. A politically nervous district attorney (Brendan Fraser) and his high-strung wife (Sandra Bullock, biting into a welcome change of pace from Miss Congeniality) get car-jacked by an oddly sociological pair of young black men (Larenz Tate and Chris "Ludacris" Bridges); a rich black T.V. director (Terrence Howard) and his wife (Thandie Newton) get pulled over by a white racist cop (Matt Dillon) and his reluctant partner (Ryan Phillipe); a... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Paul Haggis DVD Release Date: Released the 06 September 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.98 Your Price: $13.49YOU SAVE $6.49!
Buy it
