Review of Soul Kitchen (2009) by Chris Z — 20 May 2010

I'm kicking off SIFF 2010 with this one. Very funny, very enjoyable, and I recommend it. Everyone falls in love with who they're supposed to, and everyone is ultimately happy. It got scattered and very far-fetched towards the end(and the excellent musical score also got kind of weird) where the story just had to jump super fast to tie everything sort of back together.

It's the kind of story that should probably have been simplified down because it went way past the point of no return which made the ending kind of difficult to figure out some plausible way to make a return anyway to make the audience happy (since it's a feel-good comedy).

I think it would have been better if it had stayed a restaurant/food type movie instead of trying to pack 8 zillion ridiculous tangents altogether, but it was still totally entertaining, and quite well done.

However, one serious point of order: how do you make a movie called SOUL KITCHEN without any freaking soul food? Fish-n-chips, pizza, and beer cooked by a white Greek-German guy(in Germany no less) and eaten by all white people is in no way SOUL FOOD.

Just sayin'.