One of the worst I've seen in a while. An indie drama set in a mafia world with a twist ending you'll see a mile off. A director who has no control of his actors who unsurprisingly look and sound extremely bored by the whole process. Ewan McGregor showing up for a cameo, Shiloh Fernandez proving entirely unlikeable as the lead, and Val Kilmer in a sorry state. A disaster.

Gio (Shiloh Fernandez) is bringing a birthday cake to a gathering of his family of criminals. His mother had made the cake special. His father died 10 years ago and the cake is dedicated to his late father's birthday.

I like the turn. It's a big swing. I appreciate big swings even if it ends in a foul ball. That's what we have here. The swing is hard and the effort is there. In the end, it's a close miss. With such a big turn, the movie needs to set it up better. Quite frankly, I had to rewatch the first part. First of all, the father is not set up at all. The audience may require some father son time. Second, Gio actually has little to do with the cake. It would be more compelling if he's the one who specialized the cake. It's more retroactively compelling. There are a lot of big acting talents here but they are not filling out the screen. The style is deliberate indie and those star power is somehow diminished. This is a near miss but sometimes, those can be interesting.

2021's The Birthday Cake is my latest write-up. The film's title refers to an actual cake that is taken to a memorial celebration. Said cake is also sort of metaphoric. I mean it's literally like an antagonistic co-star.

So OK, The Birthday Cake surprised me considering how much the other critics panned it. My question is how is this flick overlooked? Yeah it's mob-related and well, mob-licious. But it also plays out like a living nightmare, a sort of horror talkie if you will.

"Cake" stars Shiloh Fernandez and he heads up a well-known cast of at least 5 people who appeared in Goodfellas (I'm not kidding). Fernandez is the anchor here and his screen presence is indeed bruising. It's like 1972's Michael Corleone appeared out of nowhere with well, a little facial hair.

Speaking of Goodfellas and Mean Streets and um, Uncut Gems, The Birthday Cake is like a compact version of all three of them. Rookie director Jimmy Giannopoulos (I'll just call him Jimmy G) gets his camera right up in the actor's grills. His pace is frantic and claustrophobic as it feels like everyone is filmed in a freaking tin can.

Ewan McGregor, Val Kilmer, Lorraine Bracco, and Luis Guzman are just a handful of side characters in Jimmy G's cowed, blistering vision. They're mere sycophants in the film's 93-minute running time but you like seeing them on screen anyway. Heck, it's good catching up with Kilmer considering what the dude has gone through. Val plays a mafia boss who I guess got shot in the throat and can't talk properly. In real life Kilmer suffered through throat cancer and uses a tracheotomy to get the words out. Man that's some mindful casting.

All in all, "Cake's" only criticism from me is that the film is rather short with so many familiar faces fading in and out. I mean Shiloh's Gio is the only one that registers from a full, narrative standpoint. Oh well. Any snapshot of beastly thug life caught on camera is better than no snapshot at all. The Birthday Cake is the type of violent crime drama that gets under your skin and seeps into your bloodstream. For a little over an hour and a half, I had my "cake" and ate it too.