A MOVIE FOR YOU!

CHEF: A MOVIE REVIEW

Patty and I usually don’t like the same kinds of film but with Chef we both left the (virtual, i.e. sofa) theatre smiling. In this film Carl Casper (Jon Favreau), chef of an upscale and successful LA restaurant, receives a bad review from an influential critic (Oliver Platt). This leads to a ‘rematch’ between the chef and the critic, but restaurant owner Dustin Hoffman refuses to let Chef Carl fly. Chef Carl quits.  His former wife, Sofia Vergara, and mother of their preteen son, is a glamorous Cuban American from Miami who has been pushing Chef Carl to sell Cuban sandwiches from a truck. The chef and his ex-wife get along well and chef spends alternate weekends with his son. I think the chef questioned his ability to be a good father for his son because their meetings seemed to be unfulfilling. The chef had promised to take the kid to New Orleans before leaving the restaurant but could not fulfill the promise after leaving the restaurant.  Having no other prospects Chef Carl agrees to the idea of the food truck. He takes his son to Miami, where they meet an entrepreneur (Robert Downey, Jr.) who has had some sort of relationship with the chef’s wife, and who agrees to bank-roll the truck. In Miami the chef, the  chef’s best friend (John Leguisamo) who is a former line chef at the LA restaurant, and vacationing son launch the food truck. In Miami they learn their chops and have great success. They have to return to LA, which they do via a roadtrip through the Gulf States and Texas. The kid, who is highly adept at social media, develops thousands of followers and spreads advance notice of where and when the truck will be in 'your' neighborhood. Lines of good-natured, hungry people form at the window. That’s the front story. The back story is of Chef Carl finding out who he is and what is most important in life. Duh: his family, including his ex- and their child. With the truck Dad teaches his son to be a line chef and in the process the two bond even more firmly. The food looks wonderful, the Latin music is infectious, the characters are all sympathetic, and the story is highly engaging. There are no negatives to this film. Nobody gets hurt (unless they overeat) and there are no dark turns (chef eventually reconciles with the LA critic). I cannot recommend this picture highly enough.

Chef is available from Netflix either as the DVD or to watch instantly, or from Redbox (I do not know whether our local Redboxes have Chef).