‘Chef‘ is an upcoming Hindi movie, directed by Raja Krishna Menon 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.
The movie ‘Chef’ marks the Indian remake of the hit Hollywood original American comedy-drama with the same name that released in 2014. The original movie was written, produced and directed by Jon Favreau. The movie ‘Chef’ will revolve around the life of a professional chef, who quits his job at a popular Los Angeles restaurant, to launch a food truck with his friend and son. Saif Ali Khan in the movie is equally nifty with knives and choppers, but he is more worried about his relationship with his wife and his son.
Saif said that his upcoming movie ‘Chef’ is not about a food, but the movie will be based on the relationship with a lot of food. While director Raja Krishna Menon says that they have gone down the other road and the food is kind of a glue in the movie about the relationship because most of the relationships are built around the food.
In the movie, Roshan (Sail Ali Khan) is a high-flying chef and he moves with his ex-wife Radha (Padmapriya) to sort out his troubled relationship with his wife as well as with his son Ari (Svar Kamble). Saif says that the movie is about a middle-class audience and it is space that is developing in the term of how we all are thinking and how our values are changing daily. The biggest change is happening in the area and his upcoming movie ‘Chef’ is a modern take on relationships.
When producer Vikram Malhotra approached Raja Krishna Menon with this idea to make a movie on such a topic so, before he actually agrees to do the movie he very well knew that Saif Ali Khan would be his natural choice for the role because Saif has a very interesting vulnerability in him which is very rarely seen in the actors and the character which is he going to portray will really be torn up inside.
However, Saif has donned the chef’s hat in his 2004 movie Salaam Namaste, but no one barely remembers him playing for that one. He says that he does not even remember cooking in the movie because two of the movies are very different from each other because as the economy has been changed then and now and that’s how their movie has changed. The movie-like Salaam Namaste is a great fun, but that movie is not musical that movie is about a good looking people and they are just being cool in situations and there was a time for that, but now there is much more realism which has been shown in the movies so he said that one can not compare to this chef to that chef because they are totally different from each other.
However, the original movie ‘Chef’ is covered with a range of international cuisines and the Indian adaption is more natural and more localized. The makers of the movie have been traveled to Kerela to Amritsar to New York. Director, Raja Krishna Menon said that the one can make the simplest food but the pleasure of feeding is the ultimate point that you reach and that is not a stardom or the 3 Michelin stars. He believes that the food is the greatest metaphor because the kind of food we all eat is also predicts the kind of a person you are whether be it pizza, diet coke, pasta, and wine.
While in the original movie the director has decided to serve Cuban sandwiches and yuca fries on his food truck. While Roshan (Saif Ali Khan) will be seen selling rotzza or roadside pizza. The ‘Rotzza’ is a dish which Roshan has invested out of his kitchen and his leftover for his son to make friends with him after a fight. In the movie it has been treated as a symbol of a father;s apology to a son and when the whole team was deciding the menu the kids suggest bringing it in.
Before deciding the one the makers of the team has actually gone through a various suggestion and the biggest problem they have while shooting of the movie was that the audience can not smell the food in the cinema. So it is very difficult for the makers to make the audience smell the food. The bao has worked very well for them because when you cook there is a steam and the old factory starts kicking in. They wanted the frying and sizzle they also have an idea that they should be able to make it in your kitchen and it is the emotion of the food and not the food itself.
The makers made it sure that all the food has to be more authentic to the bone and Raja is a bit of a stickler in getting the things right even in his last movie ‘Airlift’ he wanted all his tanks to be right. Similarly, in this movie, he wanted the right food and it had to be made correctly and they all wanted Saif to look like a chef so they have set up a kitchen and got a bunch of local people to come in and help them with the food.
Even Saif Ali Khan has gone through the training at the Marriott Kitchen just to learn some tricks because he has to cook for hours and he made pasta from the scratch, however, these are a very small things but they are very important and when you all see it you will start to believe that this man can cook and he belongs to the kitchen only. When you are cooking you have to look comfortable with the fire and Raja is very meticulous that way.
Saif Ali Khan said that he has a range of interesting roles on offer after Chef, which includes the movie Kaalakaandi and Baazar and then he will also be seen doing the role in the Netflix web series with a title ‘Sacred Games’. Moreover, he says that Kaalakaandi is one of the best movies he has ever signed. The movie is about a really boring man and he gets diagnosed with cancer so he drops some acid and has the adventure of a lifetime in one night. While in the movie Baazar he will be seen playing the Gujarati businessman and he is ruthless and strong. He believes that if he stuck doing a commercial movie on a different, slightly larger level then he would have lost out as a person as well as an artist also. He is lucky and blessed that he got such a great movies and he has something which is better run.