Chef movie review

Article by Gabe Zia

Lazy Film Critic reviews...

Jon Faverau returns to the directors chair for the first time for a while now, with Chef. A comedy about a talented chef who, after losing his job at a restaurant, decides to continue his passion for cooking by buying a taco truck. The film stars Jon Favreau as Carl, as well as a pretty big cast, including Scarlett Johansson, John Leguizamo, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Downey Jr, Sofia Vergara, Oliver Platt, and Bobby Cannavale.

John Leguizamo and Jon Favreau in Chef

I gotta say, I enjoyed this movie a lot, and there is a lot to like about it. The writing in the film is its strongest point, not exactly for the story, but mainly for the dialogue. The conversations and back & forth between the characters here is fantastic, delivering a very real world with very likeable characters. It was a great combination of clever and realistic dialogue, along with great chemistry between the characters which made for a very real movie.

John Favreau & Sofia Vergara in Chef

The actors in the film each do very well. Jon Favreau is very funny in the film as this dad who's trying to run this taco truck, but be a good dad at the same time. John Leguizamo played a more prominent role than I thought he would going into this film, and he's fantastic here. His character was great, he had a lot of energy, and really he stole a lot of the scenes. Really, the whole cast does a good job with their roles. However, I think the characters were in need of more development here. For example, Scarlett Johansson plays a fairly important role in the film, and she does a good job with it, but I never felt like her character had a real arc, or that they didn't take her character in any real direction. In fact, I felt this way about a few of the characters, but I feel like the more prominent characters made up for that by being interesting characters.

This being a food oriented movie, there is a lot of food in the film. Some other films would bypass the significance of food itself to play out other elements, but this film plays the food part of it out as much as it can. The food in this film looks great, the way Carl describes what it's like making this food is really interesting. Whatever you do, do not watch this movie if you're even a little bit hungry. I guarantee you, your first thoughts coming out of this film will be "want food".

Jon Favreau in Chef

The story in the film is also interesting here, being both a mix of road trip comedy with a father-son bonding movie. The scenes between Carl and his son are really well done, making them seem like a legit father and son, but there's never anything cartoonishly sappy. However, the pacing in this film doesn't work as well. A film blending a road trip comedy with father-son bonding movie can be jagged, and while this isn't a messy film, it's a noticeable gripe.

Final Rating
Chef is a funny and surprisingly realistic feel-good comedy. Although it has some problems such as weak supporting characters and a poorly paced plot, this is still a very entertaining and very enjoyable film. This is one of those films I'd say pretty much anyone can enjoy, because its got something for everyone.

Chef: 4/5