Every so often there’s a celebration of food on film. The drama and action is superfluous; the point is to convey a love of food to audience. Hence, half the scenes involve food being prepared; the other half are talking about food being prepared. It’s not much of a formula unless you’re hungry.
Overly sensitive head chef Carl Casper (writer/director/gastronomer Jon Favreau) is pretty good at food. How good a chef is he? His ex is Sofía Vergara and he’s dating Scarlett Johansson. ‘Nuff said. Now, I could tell he’s a good chef because he makes a grilled cheese for a twelve-year-old with fifteen differ
ent ingredients. That one made me hungry – I totally wanted that sandwich … “aw, and wasted on the boy, seriously?!…” He has a rivalry with restaurant owner Riva (Dustin Hoffman) — I think this film wanted to make some sort of statement about letting the chef dictate the menu – and on the night a professional critic arrives, Riva insists on the standards (“you’d be disappointed if you saw The Stones and they didn’t play ‘Satisfaction’ ”) while Carl wants to go edgy. Riva wins, the restaurant loses.
Carl then employs the help of his son Percy (Emjay Anthony) to get in deeper, engaging in a personal twitter shouting match with the critic himself (Oliver Platt). Note to anybody out there, and I mean anybody – you don’t get into the ring with a professional fighter, you don’t play paintball with a Navy Seal and you don’t match words with a guy who insults people for a living.
What I do? It’s jus
t fun. Would I go up against a professional comic? Oh, Hell no. While I may or may not have the tools, there’s a level of experience in the game you cannot match without facing it every single day.
The culmination of Carl madness is a viral face-to-face youtube self-destruction at the feet of the critic himself. It’s not quite as bad as Favreau’s self-destructive phone message orgy in Swingers, but it’s on the same level. Exit restaurant chef Carl, enter food truck chef Carl. (Set up by his ex, Inez — Sofía Vergara in an astonishingly docile role for the teen boy fantasy masquerading as an actress) The food truck is in Florida, Carl’s home is in Los Angeles, and look who shows up: his teenage son and an ex-employee (John Leguizamo) hey, whaddayaknow? Roadtrip.
Well, sure, there’s no longer any controversy or plot to speak of, 
but roadtrip! Bonding! Jokes about cornstarching one’s balls to fight the southern summer. It was actually kinda hard to discern the quality of this film because I was matched with the easiest audience I’ve encountered in several months. You can tell because they found John Leguizamo funny. Nobody finds John Leguizamo funny.
Most of Chef made me hungry. When not salivating, I kept wondering about Favreau’s tattoos (inner right arm — a butcher’s knife, outer right arm — the Bear Republic, etc.) Is he extra heavy for this role? Did he think we wouldn’t buy him as a chef were he not thirty pounds overweight? Jon, seriously, it doesn’t take props to sell this role; we believe you’re a chef when we see how you prepare food. Psst, act!
♪Food, tedious food!
Filming it is my hobby
Can’t grill in the room
Salivate in the lobby
Jon Favreau’s the dude
Wrote, acted, directed
The humor is crude
Many ass quips collected
Just pictured a three course meal
Watching this, you’re gonna squeal
For anything resembling
Food, cram it in, food, grubulous, food! ♫
Rated R, 115 Minutes
D: Jon Favreau
W: Jon Favreau
Genre: Hungry
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Foodies
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Dieters
♪ Parody inspired by “Food, Glorious, Food”
