The plot’s baffling, but not as baffling as why Kilmer, Ewan McGregor, and Paul Sorvino signed up for the director’s debut featureWriter-director-composer Jimmy Giannopoulos doesn’t have a lot of previous credits to his name, and this gangster drama seems to be his first feature.
But he or his producers are either extremely persuasive or very well connected because, given its meandering script and absurdly grand guignol ending, it’s astonishing that The Birthday Cake could attract such a starry cast.
Admittedly lead actor Shiloh Fernandez, who plays son-of-a-dead-gangster Gio, isn’t yet a household name but within minutes his character is meeting Ewan McGregor playing a priest who inexplicably also narrates the story (his daughter Clara McGregor is a producer here and has a small role herself), while Lorraine Bracco features for an only slightly longer time as Gio’s widowed mother, and baker of the birthday cake of the title.
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