CHEF

A great high energy, lively movie. We both rated it an 8 and the audience clapped with delight (as did we) when the credits rolled.

The plot was very simple; a chef at a high end restaurant in L.A. (Jon Favreau as Carl) was culinarily stifled by the owner of the restaurant (Dustin Hoffman). So after an argument in the kitchen and after a scathing review by a food critic (Oliver Platt), Carl quit the restaurant.

His ex-wife asked a favor of one of her other ex-husbands (played deliriously manic by Robert Downey, Jr.) to help Carl out. So he outfitted him with a food truck. This started Carl back on the road of cooking and serving food that he liked; in this case Cuban and South American food. He was joined by his young son and one of his cooking crew in L.A., John Leguizamo (Martin).

And that was it. Any criticism of the movie would be based around the absolute feel-goodness of it, the lack of reality in many scenes, the ex-wife who was beautiful and wealthy and had some sort of mystery important job, the perfect son. sort of like comfort food: filling but not very nutritious.  But the acting was excellent and all the characters were likable especially Martin (Leguizamo). He brought a lot of spiciness and verve to the scenes.

and speaking of spicy: that was the main attraction to the film. It was colorful and had lots of music; salsa, blues, soul; there was singing, the dialogue was snappy, it was the perfect length and the food!!!!! oh, the food!!!!! the buying of it, the preparation, the serving, the plating, the tasting, the cutting.

It was mouthwatering; there were a lot of times when me and the audience just groaned with hunger. One of the times was when Martin marinated a pork butt and roasted it for Cubano sandwiches. I felt like i wanted to snatch a slice of that meat right off the screen.

Even the sappy and especially fantastical ending, didn't detract from my love of this movie. I left the theater with my stomach rumbling and my toes tapping and my face in a huge grin.