Review of Chef (2014) by Alondie H — 17 Mar 2016

Chef has a lot of potential for a great story. Instead, we are left with a story that, while making us feel good, lacks quality as well as a major conflict to bring the audience into the story and build interest. The movie is a good father-son story and has heart, but simply lacks something to intrigue us.

The most exciting aspect of the film is the relationship between Favreau's character and his son. The relationship develops progressively throughout the film as it starts out with the two of them "doing stuff" together, but we learn what the kid really wants in a strange situation when Favreau asks his son to help him with Twitter. "I wish we could do stuff like this more... spend time together, talk about things" says Favreau's son. This gets Favreau's character thinking about how he can become more involved with his son, and leads to his decision to let his son help him when things go south.

The first act of this film takes forever to get through though, making the film seem slow at first, yet not exactly uninteresting. We get hints that Favreau might leave his job as a prestigious chef in a quality restaurant early on, but it takes about 40 minutes into the film to finally see this happen so we can move onto the second act: how he will dig himself out of this situation and be able to support himself.

Stories are built on conflict, and sadly there is no one big conflict in this film as much as there are a few smaller conflicts. These conflicts include questions such as will Favreau's character become closer with his son, will Favreau ever get his job back, and will he find happiness despite the situation. And rather than building up tension for these "conflicts," they get resolved slowly but gradually throughout the film. This allows the audience to focus on the relationship at the heart of the story, but it is also somewhat boring to watch since the second act of this film does not hit us hard with huge conflicts. The pace to this movie is slow, but safe.

The third act then is extremely rushed and takes roughly only a few minutes, and then the film is suddenly over right after the "climax." This is annoying if you're looking for a good story, but if you are looking to be pleased this film does just that, but in a cheesy manner. Chef is decent, but it is simply not up to par with other Favreau films like Iron Man or Elf.

2.5/4.0.