Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Chef (2014)

This is topic Chef (2014) in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 06-12-2014, 09:56 PM:

CINEMA: 13th Avenue Warren, Wichita, KS
AUDITORIUM: 6
PRESENTATION: Dolby Digital Cinema/THX
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: None [Cool]

RATING: Two and one half stars (out of four)

THE PLOT: A chef's temper goes viral. Wackiness ensues.

Did Twitter financially back this thing? Because this is basically an infomercial for the power of Twitter in marketing.

We have a chef who plans a special menu for a reviewer. The restaurant owner overrides this menu in favor of the standard fare. The reviewer lambastes the chef for essentially falling into a rut.

In any real world situation, this in-demand chef (the fact he's in demand is built into the story line) would have left this job for another and continued his original work. Not this guy. He has his kid set up a Twitter account, publicly tells the reviewer where to stick himself, then sets up a challenge for a repeat performance. The owner balks AGAIN, Chef walks, the reviewer gets fed the EXACT SAME MEAL AS BEFORE, and is not happy. Chef returns, blows up at the reviewer, and is promptly unemployed.

All of this sets up a food truck business made successful through social media (with a sharp focus on Twitter), a road trip that starts 3/4 through the movie, and a happy ending that includes re-bonding with his son and probably rekindling his relationship with his super hot ex-wife who, by the way, is the super nicest ex-wife in the history of the world.

Harmless fluff, I guess.

Robert Downey Jr, as usual, steals the movie.

Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 06-13-2014, 12:13 AM:

This movie surprised me, I really enjoyed it. Except for the Twitter thing, that was pretty annoying. Was humorous too though.

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 07-04-2014, 10:03 AM:

Loved this movie, the very definition of a crowd pleaser.

My one criticism - once he has the truck, there's no conflict left to resolve in the movie. The critic hes at Twitter war with disappears for 40 minutes, the kid/father story is moving along nicely during this part, but it's all up-and-up without any sort of why-do-I-care. They needed to do something on the road trip to either keep the twitter war with the critic going, or they needed to add something to wedge the kid and the father apart, so that there's a bigger gap to bridge. Once he has the truck and the kid, it's just 40 minutes of making the most awesome looking food to grace cinema (don't watch while hungry!) while upbeat music plays.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 07-04-2014, 11:59 AM:

I saw damn-near all of it, and liked what I saw, especially the relationships -- all of them. During setup and testing, I watched way more than I normally do. After the first hour, I realized I was still standing at the back of the room. That's rare.

But I have a low tolerance for "foodies" who wax poetic about food. I enjoy cooking and I can do a few fancy things, but I don't have too many conversations about food. And the ones I have are short.

Running out of steam in the middle of the 2nd act is actually a "rookie problem," so it is surprising to see it happening here.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 09-05-2014, 07:37 AM:

This movie finally hit the theaters over here and I really liked it a lot.

I do understand the complaints regarding the second half, there's not that much conflict left, it's basically an exposition of gorgeous food. But I was actually happy it didn't return to the usual pattern of: Initial Conflict, Initial Resolution, All is Well... Yay, Happytime! ...oh NOES!!! It's all falling apart, again! ...only to be resolved the very last minute in one big (anti)climax.

And that Twitter thing? Yeah, it was funny the first few minutes, but they should've kept it at that. Whether it was a bad form of product placement or not, it became rather dull after a while. The movie would've been better without the emphasis on the "social media" angle.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 09-07-2014, 12:01 AM:

I also really enjoyed this - and am surprised the staying power of the film in the theater - I gather it's the indie hit of the summer.

Posted by Terry Lynn-Stevens (Member # 7349) on 09-07-2014, 07:53 PM:

Chef was good.