The Duke (Layer Cake)

"Aw, you give a fuckin' Aspirin an 'eadache, pal!"

- The Duke, being predictably stupid The Duke (real name unknown) is a low-scale crime boss and drug dealer in the 2004 crime film Layer Cake. Though only a minor antagonist and an even less impressive gangster, the Duke nonetheless manages to kickstart the plot of the entire film via somehow obtaining a package of at least a million ecstasy pills, prompting a good deal of London's criminal underworld to take notice - including the film's main character (known only as XXXX), who assigned to manage the sale and distribution.

The Duke is played by Jamie Foreman, who also portrayed Lennie Taylor in Gangster No 1, Derek Branning in EastEnders, and Bill Sikes in the 2005 film adaptation of ''Oliver Twist. ''Ironically, Jamie Foreman is actually the son of London gangster Freddie Foreman, a noted associate of the infamous Kray Twins.

Personality
From the moment he is introduced, the Duke is quite clearly an example of XXXX's least favorite kind of a criminal: a loud, attention-seeking wannabe-gangster attempting to acquire fame and fortune as quickly and stupidly as possible. He dresses in flashy, expensive-looking clothes, drives a neon yellow land rover, talks at a volume commonly used for shouting in ordinary people, and can often be found arguing with people over just about everything, even if he's in a relatively good mood; for good measure, he's a cocaine addict, making his personality even more volatile. He doesn't appear concerned with police attention either, as his rant at the boathouse makes abundantly clear - another notable annoyance to XXXX, who makes it clear that "only very very stupid people think the law is stupid."

As the film makes apparent, the Duke is indeed one of those very, very stupid people. On top of being an egotistical buffoon who thinks that he can casually bully his way up the criminal hierarchy with a single parcel of pills, it's soon revealed that the Duke actually stole the pills from a much more powerful gangster and doesn't seem concerned that this might result in reprisals - until it's too late, of course. He also seems to be under the impression that he would be able to sell an entire package of ecstasy without anyone having to find buyers or negotiate exact prices, or even divide up the parcel and sell them in a wide area to avoid police attention; and when an increasingly aggravated XXXX attempts to explain how simply pawning the entire load for five million pounds on the spot is essentially impossible, the Duke flies into a profanity-label temper tantrum that ends up looking more comical than intimidating.

Worst of all, the Duke ends up bringing misfortune down on the heads of his business associates by bragging extensively about his connections with XXXX and Morty around Amsterdam, ensuring that the Serbians target them as well when the reprisals begin.

History
Alongside fellow antagonist Jimmy Price, the Duke helps kick off the action of the film