By Ed Koch
Volume 74, Number 55 | May 25 – 31 , 2005
Koch On Film
Layer Cake (+)
I decided to see this film not only because it received excellent reviews, but because it was showing in a theater located next to the studio where I had just completed my live Bloomberg radio call-in show, which is now broadcast every Friday evening from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m.
“Layer Cake” is a British film, and because of the heavy accents and vernacular language, I did not understand a lot of what some of the characters said. I think it would be a good idea to have subtitles on the screen for many of the British, Scottish and Irish dialect films.
The story is very enjoyable. It involves a number of mobsters, some fighting one another and others loosely allied. The narrator and protagonist who has no name (Daniel Craig) is on the verge of leaving his gang and giving up crime. Jimmy (Kenneth Cranham) and Eddie (Michael Gambon) are at one another’s throats. A gang referred to as the Serbs is being ripped off. Their Ecstasy pills, worth millions if not billions of dollars, are being stolen from them. Another character is Duke (Jamie Foreman) who is always distinctly dressed in white. He is the head of a small group of thugs willing to steal from other gangs, and he is a murderer. Then there is the enforcer Morty (George Harris) a black man who makes it clear that he is prepared to beat up anyone who has ratted out any gang member.
There are an enormous number of twists and turns with lots of blood, gore and deaths before it is over. It is all very exciting, and if I had understood more of the dialogue instead of having to figure out by the excellent acting what was happening, it would have been even better.
The Best of Youth (+)
I don’t ever recall seeing a six-hour movie that was presented in two parts with two separate films and two separate admission charges. I just saw the first three hours of “The Best of Youth,” and I look forward to seeing the second segment soon.
The first half hour of the film is a little tedious but then the story takes off. It takes place during the 1960’s and 70’s. Depicted during those years are the student riots in Italy in the late 60’s and the recruiting activities of the Red Brigade in the late 70’s.
It is the story of the Carati family made up of the very stable and loving mother, Adriana (Adriana Asti), the father, Angelo (Andrea Tidona) who is a dreamer with a fine sense of humor, two sisters, Giovanna (Lidia Vitale) and Francesca (Valentina Carnelutti), son Matteo (Alessio Boni) who becomes a cop, and Nicola (Luisi Lo Cascio) who becomes a physician working with the mentally ill.
One exceptional scene involves a court proceeding seeking to hold mental health asylum doctors criminally responsible for having used electric shock on patients as punishment. Submitting the testimony of the mentally ill was the stumbling block at the trial. The patients, because of the superb acting, appear very real, and I felt as though the decisions being made by the judge on the admission of evidence were matters of life and death affecting our entire society.
What makes this movie so unforgettable is the dialogue which rings so true, the brilliant acting of every character particularly that of the two sons, and the script. It is worth your waiting in the line that forms to get in at every performance at the Cinema Village theater in Manhattan. (In Italian with English subtitles.)
Ed Koch
