Layer Cake (film) - Plot

Plot

The unnamed chief protagonist (Daniel Craig), identified in the closing credits only as XXXX, has established a successful business in London buying, cutting, and selling cocaine. Disliking guns, and considering himself a businessman, he leaves the more violent aspects of the business to his contact Gene (Colm Meaney). Gene is assisted by fellow gangster Morty (George Harris), who had previously spent ten years in prison. Having made his fortune, he plans to retire from the business for good.

His plans go awry when his powerful supplier Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) sends him to track down Charlie, the teenage daughter of Price's associate, Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon), who has fled a rehabilitation centre with her drug-addicted boyfriend. To help track her down XXXX enlists the help of con men Cody (Dexter Fletcher) and Tiptoes (Steve John Shepherd).

At the same time, Price instructs XXXX to organize the purchase and distribution of one million ecstasy tablets from a brash, low-level gangster named The Duke (Jamie Foreman). Unbeknownst to XXXX, the pills have been stolen from a gang of Serbian war criminals in the Netherlands. Meanwhile, XXXX encounters The Duke's idiotic nephew, Sidney (Ben Whishaw) at a bar, and becomes attracted to Sidney's bored girlfriend Tammy (Sienna Miller). XXXX tries to broker the sale of the ecstasy to Liverpudlian gangsters Trevor (Louis Emerick) and Shanks (Stephen Walters), but they refuse, informing him of the drugs purloined nature and of the fact that the Serbians have sent a ruthless hitman, Dragan (Dragan Mićanović), to find the pills and kill those responsible for their theft. Because The Duke erroneously referenced XXXX's name to the Serbians beforehand, he too is now in danger. Members of The Duke's gang soon begin turning up dead and The Duke himself goes missing.

XXXX arranges a tryst with Tammy but before it can be consummated he is kidnapped by henchmen of Eddie Temple. Temple informs him that Jimmy had lost millions of pounds in a failed investment in Africa and is now hoping to sell the pills to recoup his losses. He demands instead that XXXX sell the pills to him, and plays him a tape indicating that Jimmy has been a long term informant for Scotland Yard and intends to betray XXXX to the police as soon as the deal is done. XXXX shoots and kills Jimmy but foolishly does so with a gun that Gene had used to commit a prior murder. XXXX then discovers that his accountant, whom Jimmy referred to him, has embezzled his money and disappeared. Gene and Morty, after being given evidence of Jimmy's snitching, recognize XXXX as the new boss and show him the corpse of The Duke, whom Gene had killed along with Duke's girlfriend, Slasher (Sally Hawkins), when the latter threatened to alert the police about the pills.

XXXX delivers the severed head of The Duke to Dragan as a peace offering. To recoup something from the fiasco, XXXX arranges a con in which the police appear to raid The Duke's hideout and confiscate the drugs, which satisfies Dragan. In reality, the police are Cody and Tiptoes, who return the drugs to XXXX. However, when he attempts to sell them to Eddie Temple, Temple steals the drugs from them at gunpoint and gives XXXX a "welcome to the layer cake" in the form of a membership to the Stoke Park Club of which both he and Jimmy were members. However, suspecting betrayal, XXXX has arranged for Trevor and Shanks to steal the drugs from Temple's men. The final scene has the gang assembled for lunch at the Stoke Club, proclaiming XXXX their new boss. However, he demurs, stating his intention to stick to his planned retirement. Leaving the club with Tammy he addresses the audience about his own caution and cleverness before being shot without warning by Sidney. As the film fades out, XXXX is seen bleeding on the steps, his fate left uncertain.