Sell Yourself

Although wanking and crying takes up most of my time, I do try to be productive in the half hour of each day that I'm completely free. Sometimes I like to take my dog on a walk and other times I enjoy playing Grand Theft Auto to see how many prostitutes I can kill before having to commit suicide. Occasionally though, I also like to read books with my latest effort being Jon Ronson's enjoyably un-comforting The Psychopath Test. The book followed Ronson on his one-sided adventure into the world of the crazies, whilst detailing how he suspected they're fucking up society from the top. For birdwatchers looking to take their weird hobby to the next level, the book also detailed how one might go about spotting a real life psychopath in the wild. Turns out they're manipulative, glib, callous, have rather ambitious long term goals and as such make pretty good politicians, serial killers and in some cases, step-parents. It also pointed out that if you've ever panicked about being a psycho whilst doing something a bit kooky like microwaving the cat, masturbating with shit, or enjoying a Michael Bay film then you shouldn't worry too much. A psychopath has literally no interest in how another person might define them and so you're probably fine.

You Owe Me Awe

We've all got a few secrets and fantasies that we're perhaps a little embarrassed to talk about and so I've decided I'm going to put your minds at rest. Do you like to use bondage? Well, don't worry because plenty of people do. Are you into role play and dressing up and all that? Yep, I suppose that's pretty harmless too. Do you like to break into people’s houses slaughter everybody that lives there and then stick bits of broken mirrors into their cold, dead eyes? Hmm... maybe you should call it a day on that last one. Last night I decided to re-watch Michael Mann's 1986 cult film Manhunter and it turns out that if you're into the whole death-y.. family.. mirror eyes thing then you're probably a total fucking psychopath. Who'd have thought it!

For anybody who’s not seen it, Manhunter is the very first film to feature Dr Hannibal Lecter- or to give him the correct name, Dr Hannibal Lecktor. Based upon the Thomas Harris Novel Red Dragon, Lecktor is brilliantly played here by Brian Cox which is a useful bit of trivia for any wannabe smart arses. In fact, if anybody tries to catch you out by asking who the first person to play Lecter was then simply answer “it depends how you're spelling Lecktor” which should be enough of a dickish response to counter-fuck them over. You're welcome! Oh, and if you're wondering about why you've heard of the title Red Dragon before it's because in 2002 Bret Ratner directed a remake presumably considering himself a skilled enough successor to do the job. Michael Mann is the genius director of such classics as The Insider and Heat and so I'm sure if anybody can improve on his work it probably is Ratner, whose back catalogue is so boring that it's like he's trying to be the Mr Monopoly of celluloid shit.

He thinks he's turning into a Great Red Dragon but all I'm seeing is Larry David

In Mann's version of the story, Will Graham is a retired FBI agent lured back into work when it's decided that he's the only person skilled enough to catch a serial killer known as The Tooth Fairy. Although I thought that the worst crime to feature a Tooth Fairy was that shit film starring The Rock, this one is in fact a lanky nutter who believes he's turning into the Dragon from his favourite painting. In order to catch him, Will must get into the mindset of thinking like a psychopath which is a skill exclusive only to him and anybody who’s ever sat through a Brett Ratner movie boxset and lived to tell the tale. During his investigation Will also decides to hone his senses and get a little friendly advice from his old mucker Dr Hannibal Lecktor who, thanks to a bad habit of eating people’s faces, now spends his time banged up in a nut house. From what I hear, human flesh tastes just like pork so I've never quite understood why cannibals don't just eat pork instead, which, currently, won't result in life in prison. Silly psychopaths! Anyway from here on out, Will gets closer and closer to the mindset of the killer who in turn believes he's getting closer and closer to transforming into that dragon... what a knobhead. At the same time Lecktor himself starts getting involved and causing trouble because like an over-concerned mother some people just can't keep their fucking noses out.

Anyway so if you've not seen any Michael Mann films then this is a great starting point for you to begin your education with as it contains many of the themes that continue throughout the rest of his work. Perhaps the most obvious one would be that both the hero and the bad guy are different sides of the same demented coin. This is constantly referenced by Will having to understand the mind of The Tooth Fairy to find him in the same way that his previous captive Lecktor is able to. It's also a concept which Mann examined even more masterfully in Heat and slightly more shitly in Public Enemies. Manhunter is also the first of his films to feature the colour blue in such an in-your-face way which has since become one of his defining trademarks. Like in Heat, the colour here is also used to represent both love and sex showing up in both films when a main character is lucky enough to get their bonk on.

Perhaps most significantly though with Mann's films it really is a man’s world as the exploration of masculinity seems to be the most definitive theme running through his entire back catalogue. As has been pointed out several times, the one thing all of his men have in common is that they share the secret of understanding the fragility of peace and the savage twattery of our horrible world. As a result, all of these main characters have locked their feelings up in an icy prison with their detached coolness resulting in a distancing from their loved ones as most women tend not to enjoy being emotionally fucked off. In Heat, De Niro's bank robber lives by the rule of having nothing in his life that he's not able to turn his back on at any given second. Sadly the real life De Niro seems to have applied this logic to making quality films. In Mann's films, having anything that you care about is considered a vulnerability which is also true of Manhunter when The Tooth Fairy is given the home address of Will's wife and child. However to compensate for the existential loneliness that these blokey bloke's live with, they instead focus their energies and excel exclusively in their professional lives where they remain in constant control and at the top of their game. In fact it's only ever through finding the men of a similar mindset that they can find understanding which is what I said earlier with the whole yin, yang, coin thing. For better or for worse, Mann's films, as his name might suggest, are very much the cinematic equivalent of a proper serious, joke-free, sausage party.

So yeah the film is genuinely great and although he's not the main character, it does possibly feature at least the most realistic performance of Hannibal yet. It's unfair to compare each performance in terms of quality because Manhunter is a very different type of film to any that have subsequently followed it. This is clinical examination of how to catch a nutcase using methodical and psychoanalytical techniques. Silence Of The Lambs however is a full on gothic pantomime with over the top performances, 'he's behind you' type scares and even the traditional panto dame. In case you're not so ‘up’ on your pantomimes then the ‘Dame’ is a man who dresses up as a fat woman to make the audience laugh... Although generally he doesn't start his song and dance routine with the lines “would you fuck me? I'd fuck me, I'd fuck me hard”. Not in any I've seen, anyway. Also, Anthony Hopkins's Lector works as brilliantly in his more hammer horror type film as Cox's does in his more grounded realistic one. It's as unfair to compare the work of these two actors because although the films were released chronologically, they're as much a sequel to one another as Skyfall is a sequel to Moonraker. For completists though, I do recommend the new Hannibal TV show which is like a cross between the two types of film and features a great performance from Mads Mikkelsen whose Lector doesn't even attempt the realism of Cox's, instead playing the part like a cross between James Bond and The Devil. I guess there's also Gaspard Ulliel's version in Hannibal Rising but really, with something as shit and unnecessary as that, who can be bothered?

"Oh hello- yes, Gaspard Ulliel was a boring cunt..."

Speaking of shit and unnecessary however, that brings me nice and neatly back onto Manhunters 2002 remake Red Dragon. Having said that it's pointless to compare performances, I'm going to turn myself into a hypocrite and say simply that if Cox does have any edge then it's in that his version was a solo outing. After the success of Silence of The Lambs, Hopkins re-played the role in Ridley Scott's Hannibal which to be fair is stupid but I do have a soft spot for, and then again in Ratner's crappy remake. The problem with all this is that the key to Hannibal is in his mystery and so the more that's explained about him the less alluring he becomes. Ten years after Hopkins played the character he attempted to play him ten years younger than he originally was which just meant giving him a little ponytail that made him look like a lesbian dinner-lady. Cox on the other hand might only be in this film for a mere few minute but his presence can be felt in every scene as he controls events like a mischievous cannibal bell-end.

To sort of conclude, if I'm going to be kind, I'd say that for what it is and considering the man in charge, Red Dragon isn't the turd mountain of shit that it should be... Ultimately there's just no need for it. It's an average-and-more superficial thriller with a great cast and actually one of my favourite scores from Danny Elfman however it just does fuck all new from Manhunter or Silence of The Lambs. For an easy demonstration of the difference, just watch the opening scenes of both versions with Manhunter being all about drawing you in through ambiguity and Red Dragon being about spoon feeding exposition. The exposition might go down more smoothly at first but that's only because it's basically shit. Mann's film is all about empathising with evil in order to achieve your purpose in life and the effect that might have. In many ways, Niche's quote... which may be my favourite quote of all time could be this films tagline,“Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you”. On the flipside, Red Dragon just looks at the source material, shits all over the psychology of it and replaces it with a tribute film to Anthony Hopkins. Manhunter may have created the police procedural film, helped popularise the word 'serial killer', and may be in the top two or three catch-the-psycho movies of all time. I'm not saying you have to see it but rather if you're a fan of film then until you do we simply can't be friends.

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Even Drug Dealers Don't Work Weekends

Layer Cake for me is one of those films that you put on after a few years and then realise is a forgotten favourite. You know how occasionally you'll get back with an old partner and remember what it was like to love them in the first place? Well it's kind of like that, I imagine. I say ‘imagine’ because for anyone in my history the only emotion I have is pure unadulterated contempt. There's so much hate running through me that at times it genuinely makes my balls hurt. I have recurring nightmares about getting back with one girl. In the dream I sleep with her and then remember exactly why I dumped her in the first place. I wouldn't mind but the scene starts the next morning so I don't even get to re-experience the fun of sweatily spaffing up the psycho's fat meat-muffin. The nightmare that begins with post-fuck horror is depressingly my equivalent of a wet dream, none of the joy, all of the shame. The bitch has left more scars in my head than she did on her own arms which is a ratio I hope will one day corrects itself. Until that day however I'll keep my fingers crossed, continue my downward spiral into misanthropy and get back to talking about Layer Cake.

So I hadn't seen Matthew Vaughn's crime thriller in a good few years but there was a point where I experienced it almost monthly. It was like my equivalent of a period I guess and I'd get fucking grouchy if anyone disturbed me. It seems to me that there is a British Gangster film that emerges every decade and that defines that current era. The 70's had Get Carters grim up North revenge thriller and the 80's had The Long Good Friday in which Bob Hoskins was plagued by the IRA in a London smothered by the shadow of Thatcher's big, hairy testicles. For the 90's it was probably Lock Stock, which appeared at the height of Brit Pop as bands like Blur sailed high with their cheekiness and mockney personas.

Layer Cake starts with Daniel Craig's nameless business man explaining to us why it's ok to sell drugs. His logic is that it'll be legal one day and so why not profit in the short term by supplying something that clearly has a demand. To be honest, he puts up a convincing argument. If we ever want to win the war against drugs then legalisation and rehabilitation seems like a more practical solution than prison sentences and demonisation. In my opinion, addiction to anything is as much a disease as cancer, leprosy and religion. I'm not saying that drug dealing is morally justified but that Craig's character is right. He's simply an opportunistic salesman who has found a gap in the market. As statistics will prove more lives are ruined each year through alcoholism and cigarettes than ecstasy or marijuana. He might be a cunt for what he's selling but he's no more of a cunt than the governments who profit from those other substances. At least he's not a hypocrite as well.

Like an old battered whore, Craig however has decided that enough is enough and it's time to get out of the game. Unfortunately for him though he's got one last job to do which for anyone in movies basically means you're probably going to die. Unfortunately Craig is reluctantly tasked with finding the missing daughter of Michael Gambon. I'm a huge fan of Gambon and so it's nice to see him turn up here even if he is shit-stained with so much fake tan that he looks like a gangly David Dickinson. Although Craig begins his investigations, matters complicate themselves with the appearance of some fucked up Serbian war criminals. It turns out they've had some Ecstasy pills stolen from them and they wrongly believe he is the culprit. As is so often the case when you piss off old Johnny Foreigner the only way to make peace is allow him to decapitate you. Craig therefore has to return the pills he never stole or learn how to live without a head. To be fair though it can't be that difficult to survive minus a bit off the top as Paris Hilton has so far managed without a brain since about 1981.

There are a couple of films that could be the definitive British gangster film of the naughties however I think this one slightly edges it. Like the country at the time, Craig is confidently and yet unknowingly marching towards an economic downfall. He has that post 90's yuppie feel to him and possesses the ability to pull the kind of sarcastic facial expression that only we English can. Most importantly however it is a London set crime thriller that does not in anyway feature the crackling cockney fart that is Danny Dyer. As well as having a self-reviewing and misspelt surname, Dyer is a medical condition known as movie AIDs and has appeared in a string of cinematic shite since about 2004. He's kind of like if Jason Statham had an underachieving, Down’s syndrome brother who has failed to mimic exactly what he does. If Ray Winstone took a dump, left it in the sun and it grew some hair then it would be an acting force far greater than Dyer could ever hope to be.

The other thing that Britain was renowned for in the naughties was of course our relationship with America. To some people, it looked like we were their bitch but in reality we were simply mentoring them. It used to be Britain that ran the world- if the yanks want to take over then there's no harm in a bit of support from their predecessor. It's therefore interesting to see that the very British Layer Cake was critically complemented for seeking inspiration from the sleek, smooth aesthetics of the very American Michael Mann. However for me, this is less Michael Mann and more Winding-Refn. It deals with similar themes to Pusher and has the same pulpy look as Drive. Either way, it makes the place look a lot fucking cooler than it actually is. If London is mutton then Layer Cake is whatever skinned farmyard animal that it wears to look like Lamb.

Adding to the sense of coolness is the music which features some great songs, one of which is the classic “Gimme Shelter”. That song has been used in so many gangster films that I'm sure that the Rolling Stones must be the official sponsor of organised crime. A claim which can only be backed up by Keith Richards, who is seemingly being protected by a force so intimidating that it has scared off death itself. I'm not saying I want Keith to die but it just doesn't seem fair that the 60 year old ex junkie can fall out of a palm tree and survive. I'm only 23 but I'm convinced that if I trip, I'll break a hip and then fester on the floor until my corpse looks like a mouldy rug and people wipe their shitty shoes on me.

The other and more obvious reason why Layer Cake is so cool is clearly thanks to Daniel Craig. James Bond is Britain's greatest cultural icon and it's clear from this why Craig was selected to play him. Like any male I have a huge man crush on 007 which I think is partly due to Craig's hypnotically beautiful eyes. They're so blindingly blue that they're like two giant swimming pools that I just want to swim in. Unlike most times I've gone swimming, I'd try really hard not to urinate. I can honestly say that I would never want to piss in James Bonds eyes. That's a statement I can't make in regards to Piers Morgan whose eyes are less like a swimming pool and more like two slimy portals to a soulless world of smugness and sweat. In fact the only time I wouldn't piss on Morgan would be if he was on fire which as we all know is unlikely to happen thanks to the layer of grease that protects his skin from Earth’s atmosphere. I know Morgan is nothing to do with Layer Cake but you should never pass up any chance to refer to him as an arrogant, cunt with a face like a rancid tumour inside a walrus' scrotum.

Considering that this film was prior to Craig being cast as Bond, it's enjoyable to watch the scene in which he wanders around with a gun pretending to be him. The other scene I particularly look forward to here is the encounter between Craig's associate Morty and a tramp. Here, Morty follows the standard practice of what to do if a tramp asks you for some money. He gives him a little bit to start with and then when the tramp asks for some more he caves his fucking head in. Beating a beggar up is a bit like rubbing a dogs nose in its own shit. It sounds cruel but sometimes it's the only way to get them to stop.

So all-in-all, Layer Cake is a brilliant film that needs to be watched. Not just because it's great entertainment but because it's a snap shot of what Britain was like in the early naughties. The other possibilities were In Bruges and Sexy Beast but I ruled them out due to them both being set abroad. When it comes to my country, I can't say I'm very patriotic but when it comes to British films I can say I'm proud. Sure there are more Danny Dyer movies than there should be but fuck it if they keep him off the streets and out of trouble then fine. That fact that Danny Dyer has a film career is simply a testament to our equal opportunity schemes that allow un-dead foetus's to appear on screen. Everything else aside Layer Cake is worth it simply for Michael Gambon's facts of life speech. “You’re born, you take shit… you get out in the world, you take more shit…climb a little higher and you take less shit, until one day you’re on that rarefied atmosphere and you’ve forgotten what shit even looks like. Welcome to the layer cake son…” Like a modern day “If” by Kipling that to me is pure poetry!
 

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