YMMV / Layer Cake

• Harsher in Hindsight: Ben Whishaw kills Daniel Craig at the end of this movie. In No Time to Die, he ends up losing him at the end after Bond asks him to order a missile attack on Safin's island, but Q wasn't aware that Bond would be infected with the virus programmed for his girlfriend's DNA and would end up staying.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Quite a few relating to the fact that Daniel Craig subsequently went on to become James Bond...
  • The soon-to-be 007 plays a character who hangs around at Stoke Park, which was famously used for the golf scene in Goldfinger.
  • Craig's character's name is given as "XXXX" in the credits ... not a million miles from the code-name of the Russian agent that one of his Bond predecessors romanced in The Spy Who Loved Me.
  • When XXXX is shown Gene's collection of guns, he plays around with it (as stated in the screenplay) "As if he's James Bond". It was this film that convinced producer Barbara Broccoli to cast Craig as Bond.
  • Later, XXXX does a bit of Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You after hanging up on Dragan.
  • Sidney shoots at the protagonist ... and later provides him with a gun in Skyfall.
  • Moving away from Bond, the first time we see Clarkie, he's wearing a surgical mask. It looks almost familiar now.
• Magnificent Bastard: Eddie Temple is an English crimelord who has become a feared and renowned figure in the British underworld, establishing himself as a legitimate businessman and member of upper society while secretly running a criminal empire behind the scenes. Temple's lifelong associate Jimmy Price lost a large sum of money in a bad overseas investment, blaming Temple for it and attempted to have Temple's beloved daughter kidnapped to use her as a hostage. Temple quickly undercuts this scheme by revealing his findings about Jimmy being a police informant to Jimmy's young and ambitious cocaine manufacturer XXXX during a High-Altitude Interrogation, who kills him for the betrayal. Temple then cuts a deal with XXXX for a batch of ecstacy pills that were stolen on Jimmy's behalf from a group of Serbian gangsters, only to confiscate the drugs during the rendezvous and offering XXXX exclusive membership to a high-class social club instead. Temple is a ruthless gangster while at the same time being courteous, witty, and polite, reminding XXXX that it takes years of time and dedication to ascend the layer cake of life.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Q as a Crazy Jealous Guy.
  • One of the junkies is John Constantine.
  • The Duke's girlfriend as Elisa Esposito.
  • Gazza would become a FOCKING LEGEND in Gin Alley.
• Wangst: Mr. X himself often likes to make a lot of complaints when things don't go his way.

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