Film Opening Research - "LAYER CAKE"

Review of 'Layer Cake'

The opening monolouge to layer cake is there to make the audience sympathise with the main character, it does this by using non-diagetic dialouge (a voice over) to allow the audience to feel they are inside the mind of the character. The dialoge says "Im not a gangster, Im am business man, this shows the audience that the main character isnt a criminal but he is a clever business man that doesnt get caught out like stereotypical drug dealers, and he also has different methods as to how to make billions.After that the voice over introduces us to another character by saying " This is Clark, double first in Cambridge in industrial drugs. Mummy's gotta pay off his student loan somehow". this suggest that daniel craig's character works with clever businessmen with alot of knowledge about the drug industry. Normally in films based around drug dealers and people in the dealing business the audience instantly dislike the main characters but in layer cake the main character talks about how he is in it just for the money and he doesnt touch the drugs himself, therefore the audience feel the sence of innocence in the characters mind.

The first scene shows a room of people smoking drugs using camera work such at cross cuts, zooming and graphic matches, For example there is a shot of a womans legs walking across the room the a graphic match is used turning the womans legs into a prison guards legs, this demonstrates that the drug users end up in prison which allows the audience to understand the story better. After The voice over explains everything about drugs we are intoduced to Daniel Craig's character, he is walking through a pharmacy but at first it looks like a storage for drugs such a speed and cocaine, but using a graphic match everything changes to things you would normally see in a pharmacy such as medicine and cough sweets when the camera pans across the shelves. This makes the audience like the main character because it shows that he thinks alot about drugs and gets involved in the dealing business but in everyday life he is innocent untill proven guilty.