Double: Layer Cake/Green Street Daniel Craig 2011 DVD Top-quality

Double bill featuring two hard-hitting British thrillers. ‘Layer Cake’ (2004) is based on the London-set crime novel by J.J. Connelly. ‘X’ (Daniel Craig) is a successful, smooth-talking cocaine dealer – respected among London’s crime elite – whose plan is to bankroll enough cash to make an early retirement from ‘business’ and lead a quiet, crime-free life. He sees the opportunity to make a final score when big crime boss Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) asks him to track down Charlotte Ryder (Nathalie Lunghi), the wayward daughter of his old friend Eddie (Michael Gambon). But complicating matters are two million pounds’ worth of Grade A drugs, a neo-Nazi sect and endless ‘layers’ of deals and double-deals. In ‘Green Street’ (2005), Matt Buckner (Elijah Wood) is a Harvard journalism student who has just been expelled from college. Drifting across the Atlantic to London to stay with relatives, Matt meets Pete Dunham (Charlie Hunnam), the leader of a local West Ham ‘firm’, and finds himself gradually drawn into the violent underworld of football hooliganism. Meanwhile, Pete’s oldest friend and second in command of the firm, Bovver (Leo Gregory), starts to resent Matt’s new position in the group and secretly plots to take him down.