Review of Burnt (2015) by Amheretojudge — 14 Sep 2019

Plenty of dressing, plenty of sauces to choose from, the main course, though, is undercooked.

Burnt John Wells has a troubling script in his hand. And it is supposed to be shocking. Steven Knight wrote the screenplay. You don't expectPlenty of dressing, plenty of sauces to choose from, the main course, though, is undercooked.

Burnt.

John Wells has a troubling script in his hand. And it is supposed to be shocking. Steven Knight wrote the screenplay. You don't expect something like this from him. Although, every word of the film is subtexted with his signature all over it. The film takes odd turns and you'd go, "Oh! Yeah. This makes sense." And that is all the sense you are going to get. The director John Wells' film is troubling for it never knows what it is. In present. What it breathes and feels. The film is well aware of the trajectory it has to follow. It is mapped out meticulously within the script. What it doesn't know, is how to behave.

More importantly, express. Tons of action in the film, the decisions made by the characters or maybe even improvised by the actors are incongruent to.. well, anything. You need double checking on what it just chose to do or be. Is this the storyline are we supposed to follow? Predictable in its entirety and messy in its root. The only one coming off as a winner is Bradley Cooper. He is given one eccentric character to portray.

And he oozes power exactly how it is written on the paper. That is, once again, not to say that he is perpetually giving his best. In fact, the first act of the film is driven by him and it is in safe hands by then. His name is a myth that anyone would gladly love to listen to and gossip about. And he lives up to his reputation. He uses his celebrity persona, various charming tactics and passionately rude behaviour to overpower others. Burnt is about one character and all they had to do was hold on to him, they took him for granted.