Daniel Craig: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked
4. XXXX - Layer Cake
While this wasnt the performance which initially got Barbara Broccolis attention - that was Our Friends in the North, more on which later - it was certainly the performance that showed everyone that Craig had the right combination of steel and vague, hovering angst, plus the ability to retain his charm while operating under a slightly dubious moral code, to give good Bond. It was his breakout performance, establishing him as your go-to violent-but-affable action chap. As the near-retired drug lord known as XXXX (given the palava he has to put up with throughout the film, youd have thought hed just have brought the date of his formal retirement forward a couple of days and settled for the carriage clock rather going for one last massive score), Craig walks the line between cocksure and an unease as to his suitability for the world he finds himself in. Sound familiar? It was here that the charismatic but emotionally raw brutality which defines his Bond was buffed up, but theres also a winning flippancy, weariness and pragmatism to XXXX which makes him a slightly more relatable anti-hero than Bond. Very few of us have had to kill hundreds of people for Queen and country like Bond; far more of us have told cold-callers to get stuffed like XXXX.
