Layer Cake (2005)

I've watched a lot of movies about gangsters, about wanna-be gangsters, about business men mistaken for gangsters, about people trying to break into the life, about people trying to break out of the life. There comes a point when you think that you've seen just about all there is to see in the genre. Sure, you'll still watch new films because of this actor or that set-up, and they're enjoyable, but the enjoyment is much like the premise, derivative.
Then along comes a movie like this one, which I must say that I've known about for years but didn't watch because it was always described to me as a, "British gangster flick about a good enough bloke who wants to get out of the life but due to matters beyond his control can't". Well, that sounds an awful lot like every Jason Statham gangster film I've ever seen. Sure, that first one was entertaining, and the second one had some funny bits, and the third one had that one hot actress, and then finally I'm not watching "that" film anymore. but then one day, as you're working your way through a particular actor's works, in my case Daniel Craig, it comes up again and you give in and think that at least Craig and co-star Sienna Miller are pretty to look at. And then you notice once you've finally got the box in your hand that the film also stars some other really great actors like Colm Meaney and George Harris, oh and some guy named Michael Gambon.
Craig plays Mr. X, well that's not his name, but they make a point of never naming him. He's a drug dealer at the distribution level. When the story begins he is finishing what is going to be his last job. He's put aside a lot of money which he has laundered and also has a stake in a very lucrative and more importantly legitimate business. But the boss that X works for has other plans. There is a girl that needs to be found and there is a huge - million pill - drug deal that needs to be brokered.
Nobody is what they seem in this film. X is a "businessman", or so he states at the beginning, but by the end of the film, well he's as gangster as gangster gets. There's his boss that pretty much forces him into this deal, who turns out to be a snitch. There is cool-headed Morty (Harris) that is X's right-hand man, that is until he runs into a guy who sent him down the river for ten, that when Morty is done with him is in a coma after an extremely sever beating in a diner. There is the top-of-the-top criminal overlord, Temple (Gambon) who turns out to be just as dirty and duplicitous as the gangsters he looks down upon.
The girl that X is supposed to be rescuing is Temple's daughter and she doesn't need rescuing, but that puts X on Temple's radar. And the drugs to be moved were stolen from a former Serb Warlord that wants his merchandise back along with the head of everyone involved.
Every time you think that X is down, he's up, and every time that you think he's up, he's down. But in the end, he ends up with his retirement after all and the girl. For a minute or two.
The movie is brutal in a couple of parts, but nothing that you wouldn't expect from this genre. You're also surprised by who does and who doesn't die and who kills them. I think this was good enough to get me to take another look at the gangster films again, particularly British gangster films.