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Chef Movie Review: Finally, Saif cooks up a delicious storm at the movies
The greatest win of any film is if it’s able to hold the attention of its audience for the entire screen time. After a long time, here’s a film that gives you nearly no reason to get you distracted. It has everything you are looking for – the right recipe of cinema. What better when you find a fantastic germ of an idea, great execution, fantastic actors and soothing music in the same package. Chef works through and through. And it’s good to see Saif in his element. He is understated and effective. He is who makes Chef is a dish that’s hard to resist. Saif is doing some of his most natural work here and he is in top form. We’d missed him, hadn’t we? Padmapriya plays an equal with panache but it’s the young kid who is fantastic.
Saif and his director Raja Krishna Menon take the Hollywood hit to serve it desi style. An exasperated chef takes a trip to meet his estranged wife and son and finds himself in turn. It’s a dish served with such heartening emotions that warms the cockles of your heart. The story has its own elements and is quite different from the original. Let’s not compare for starters. Menon takes an independent route, using gastronomic delightstodecode matters of the heart. Till interval, it coasts along breezily.
Of course, the curse of the second hour ought to strike at some point in every desi flick. Chef wobbles in the second half when Menon and Khan bothloseplot of what they set out to achieve. Is it a love story? Or a father-son saga? Or a man seeking himself in the clutter of life? Menon doesn’t know what to do which is when he falls for clichés. There’s a 3 Idiots angle about parents critiquing those who dare to follow their heart. It’s a point well made but hardly something that we haven’t seen. The estranged couple get together with no sparks flying. Shouldn’t a divorced couple have more reason to get back than their son, who clearly wasn’t a factor in the decision earlier?
Menon caters to the ladies with the Mantastic Milind Soman, who is easy on the eyes but hardly there. He walking around in a lungi is quite something to watch and to top it all, the man has an envious car collection he flaunts.
For flawless second half, this one has quite a predictable second hour. We can tell the sequences even the climax, that’s pure melodrama of the 90s. You can find your fix in the gorgeous shots of food they make and the more picturesque locales they do full justice to by inserting aplenty aerial shots.
But even as we praise Saif for his earnestness, can we help wonder how different is this man – Roshan Kalra – from the other messed up boys he has played in the past. Yes, he has grown up but Saif needs to avoid any more of these glorified versions of messed mind space.
But, something about it feels fulfilling still. It’s a feeling ormay be a hungry soul can brighten up at the mere mention of food. Worth finding an answer of your own!
We rate it a 65% on the Pinkvilla Movie Meter.
