Review of Chef (2014) by William C — 28 Oct 2015

Movies about food usually have some long shots of some person cooking some delicious meal, sounds galore of sizzling, bubbling and the whole works of the kitchen and of course they also have the person doing all the cooking. Chef is a movie that contains all my past statements and mixes them up into a film that works in some ways but also can fail at some others. The story see's Chef Carl Casper as he deals with a restaurant critic who isn't the nicest of guys, and we see Carl change not only the way in which he cooks his meals, but also how he moves on in the food industry and most importantly, how he treats his family.

The story takes just a little time to get started and much like the state of the food van when Carl finds it, the movie really stutters into a nice end half. For me one thing this movie does that feels kind of annoying is the addition of cast like Dustin Hoffman and Scarlett Johansson who just feel like big name fillers for very ordinary roles in the movie. The movie really does get better as soon as Carl realises what he wants to do and does it, the movie transforms itself from a pretty average affair into a satisfactory one and weirdly also I felt gets funnier by the end.

Jon Favreau plays Carl and I wasn't so keen on him, I'm not sure if it was his acting or that he didn't feel right for the role but something felt odd in that sense. I admit though that Favreau does like the actual movie transform, turns into a much more likeable character by the ending scenes and that is helped by him realising some home truths. Carl's son Percy is played by Emjay Anthony and he is pretty good in the role, his mother is played by Sofia Vergara who like Favreau for parts of this can feel the wrong casting for the role, she is not bad but maybe I just needed to see more of her in the story to truly feel for her too. One cast member who injects life into the story is Robert Downey, Jr., could be seen as a big name filler but to be fair he is a funny character albeit not seen a lot though, maybe more of a guest appearance than a true role for Downey, Jr.

Jon Favreau directs and writes this movie and gets it right for the most part, I think he manages to get enough shots of the food to make it the kind of movie where you just want to eat afterwards. He also gets the odd bit of humour out the script, not really that funny and one of the reasons I felt this wasn't great but still gets a few jokes squeezed out and makes the most humour wise of the talented cast at his disposal. I think this being in the mind of Favreau for a long time really makes this feel like his baby and his most honest work, I mean Favreau controls aspects of this movie that make it feel like he made this not for the box office returns, but that he made this because he just had to tell a story like this one day.

I did feel at times this movie can feel a little too basic, you know like you can see what happens but actually it turns out not too predictable to make it too dull. If I had to try and recommend this to people then this is really one for those who enjoy a feel good vibe, the kind of movie that is happy but also can make you feel for Carl as he realises his inner most hopes and dreams. We see Carl's life before him and we then get to see what he makes of it when a big thing hits it, that I feel is why this movie for me is satisfactory and also a just about acceptable contribution to the food films out there.