Raja Krishna Menon‘s most awaited movie ‘Chef‘ has been finally released today. The movie which is directed by and produced by Bhushan Kumar, Vikram Malhotra, and Bandra West Pictures. The movie features Saif Ali Khan in the lead along with the south actor Padmapriya and child artiste Svar Kamble.
Director Raja Krishna’s movie ‘Chef’ is an adaption of the Hollywood original American comedy-drama with the same name that released in 2014. The movie which was written, produced and directed by Jon Favreau. The movie features a meltdown when a critic skewers his restaurant and his video clip of that moment of weakness turns viral and that ends up destroying him professionally. But, he uses this as an opportunity in his life and he finds a new road and simultaneously bonds with his son and his ex-wife.
However, in the Bollywood movie, Saif Ali Khan is playing the role of a top chef Rohan Kalra and he loses his job at a plush restaurant in New York when he hits a dissatisfied patron. Initially, he felt sorry for himself and he got angry at what he perceives as an injustice. But he soon realizes that he had allowed his work to qualitatively decline. However, the customer it dawns on him and was, in fact, it was right.
Roshan’s good friend and a former colleague Vinnie, played by the Sobhita Dhulipala and he uses the hiatus to visit his son in Kochi, where his on lives along with his mother Radha (ex-wife of Roshan) and she is a successful classical dancer. However, the circumstances in the movie will lead Roshan and Armaan on a road trip in a food truck, where Roshan has decided to run.
Saif’s acting was completely effortless as he is very comfortable in front of the camera and so is Janakiraman as it happens, is a hottie. Janakiraman is exquistive, she is a pan-India actress with a filmography dominated by Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu. However, she is not very well known face in Bollywood and that is a really a great loss for the Bollywood cinema.
Both the lead actors in the movie shared a great chemistry and debutant Svar Kamble, who is playing Saif Ali’s son in the movie did a great job too. The movie also features Milind Soman and his character in the movie reminds us that there are few creatures in this world that are sexier than a well-built man. The great thing about the Kerela is that it is so spectacular that wherever you point your camera you will automatically see the beauty. Priya Seth is a director of the photography and she took the full advantage of the picturesque landscape at her disposal to lay out an array of stunning visuals for our consumptions. It is very very important at some point because later, Chef becomes a road film. The movie will take us along from Kerela to Goa and finally, they will reach to Delhi. However, Seth does not serve us though are food visuals, a fact that turns out to be this film’s death knell since it
‘Chef’ is a slick production where everyone is looking good from start to finish. The movie is an extremely frustrating experience. However, the joy of watching any road movie is to see the changing geographical and cultures of the places the protagonists pass through. In the movie, we all will get a decent serving of the former and a teeny bit of the latter here.
It is very difficult for us to believe that Menon is not well-acquainted with the genre and even if he is not then all he needs to do for the inspiration and education was to look within Kerala, where half of the movie has been shot and from where, just this year, Angamaly Diaries dished out a plethora of thoroughly exhilarating food scenes on screen and they set all set in roadside eaters and kitchens of a small southern Indian town. However, Bollywood doesn’t make so much food movies before this director Ritesh Batra brought home to us the delightful sights and the sound of cooking in the movie titled ‘The Lunch Box’.
The Hollywood movie ‘Chef’ was not that much brilliant, but the movie had a clarity that what he wanted to do and there was no hesitation in doing it. The movie was a heartwarming story and was almost meditative in the way the director has captured the romance while cooking. In the movie, you will him a slice, chop and dice vegetables and he selects meats and veggies, fry, bake, boil and roast and then they will plate up as a painter would work on the canvas.
However, in the Bollywood movie, there is no reference to food at all and they all were interspersed with the scenes where people were shown cooking, serving, and can be seen eating in the long and the medium shots with no focus on what lay on their plates. The makers of the movie almost took 45 minutes to give entire scene devoted to the hero conceptualizing, cooking and serving a complete dish and with the camera closing on his ingredients, his methods and the dish he invents. About this Saif said that however, he is not a big foodie but as soon as the scene got over he rushed back to his home’s kitchen to try ou that thing Roshan chritsena a rotzza.
Saif said that when Arman tried chhole bhature for the very first time and the camera gingerly watched him from an about a foot away and he almost yelled at him that you should better zoom in on that bhatura. There is one point there is a mention of idiyappam, a sort of rice noodle cake with a coconut filling on it. Raja’s movie talks the chefing out of Chef and which is pretty much like taking the music out of a musical.
The music in the movie has been given by Raghu Dixit and that is surprisingly bland and with the expectation of an up-tempo number called Shugal Laga Le and this song will rev up your mood as soon as it is played. Raghu himself appeared in the movie to sing the song, and he is introduced in one of the most awkwardly constructed scenes and the other comes with the interaction between Roshan and Soman;s character Biju and both of them appeared to be the most hurriedly written, poorly developed parts of the screenplay.
The movie will show some sweetness in the conversations between the Roshan and Armaan and separately between Roshan and Radha and there are some insights that will emerge from the story. Roshan Kalra’s early struggles and poignancy in his experience in Amritsar it just not enough. However, the dialogues in the movie have been neatly presented thought the writing team lacks research in the shocking scenes where the character informs Roshan that he knows the language Hindi, which he describes as a National language and that is an error that India does not have a National language. It seems like the whole team of the movie Chef has not read the constitution or the history of the country’s language movement.
However, we can not say that the movie has nothing good to offer. The movie has pleasant in parts and some parts of the movie are very charming. In the absence of the heft and a commitment to its genre, the movie still remains ineffectual. The ‘Chef is a fun to watch and the character played by the Milind Soman is a surprise and despite having a limited screen timing he has given a great performance. The movie ‘Chef’ offers a brilliance and the movie would have weaved in a more organized manner.