Chef | Teen Ink

Chef

January 6, 2019
By MovieReviewer_18 ELITE, Short Hills, New Jersey
MovieReviewer_18 ELITE, Short Hills, New Jersey
678 articles 0 photos 8 comments

 Chef is a movie that showcases the fast-paced life of a chef, the good parts of being a head chef, the bad parts, and how a chef deals with being a parent. The protagonist, Carl Casper, who happens to be both a a father and a chef, is forced to cook for one of the most prestigious critics in Los Angeles. Although Carl wants to make an elaborate, creative menu to impress the critic, a controlling owner forces the chef to make a safe menu instead.  When a critic harshly reviews Carl and writes some personal reviews, the chef begins to get mad. When the reviews begin to go viral on Twitter, Carl gets even more furious and gets a twitter account of his own. Because he doesn't entirely understand how twitter works, he ends up sending the harsh critic a tweet that was meant to be private, but it ends up being public. The re-tweet of his goes viral, and the critic then replies again, snobbishly, and that tweet also goes viral.  Although it would be best for Carl to not respond back, he ends up replying another tweet and engages in a social media fight with him by telling the reviewer to come back to the restaurant and try their new menu. However, the owner of the restaurant doesn't want to serve the fresh menu, and this pushes Carl to the limit. As a result, the chef ends up feuding with the critic about a chocolate lava cake. A video of him yelling at the critic goes viral, he loses his job, and he starts to ponder about what he should do next with his life. In order to spend more time with his son, Percy, Carl agrees to go to Miami with his son and his ex-wife. as she visits her father there. While in Miami, Carl decides that he should open up a Cuban food truck. While opening the food truck, the chef brings his son along and teaches him the values and lessons that come with cooking. After the truck gets cleaned and receives a fresh paint job, Carl, his friend, Martin, and Percy open up the food truck, and, together, they start selling Cubanos. The trio travel to New Orleans, Texas, and more, as they jump start their business. Carl soon learns that this life is much more suited for him than the intense, serious restaurant life. 
 Chef is a triumphantly fun movie that manages to combine together a clever concept with well done execution. The movie showcases great people making great food and shows the world the true power and greatness of good food. The movie certainly has its own zest, and if this movie doesn't inspire people, then nothing will. The movie seems to greatly elucidate the entire concept of the American dream and how people can be given the chances to start over and do what they really want to do. There's a fair amount of character development in the movie, and it is nothing but delight to see Carl transform. Jon Favreau does a tremendous job playing Carl Caspers, and he is really able to become the character. 

 Chef has some comical moments, some dramatic moments, some emotional moments,  some delicious moments, and so much more. The entire movie is just one wild roller coaster that is sure to please. Because the movie actually has people make food that genuinely looks pleasing, the movie is able to benefit from having people actually want to eat the food on screen, helping to inspire people to try to become their very own chefs.

 Chef is able to become a coherent story, simply because it is able to connect the beginning of the movie with the enticing end that proves to be as good as the movie can be. The middle of the movie marvelously progresses the movie along, and it is quite nice to see other major characters be given chances to shine throughout this portion of the film. There aren't really any thrilling surprises, aside from a few, but the movie doesn't really need them, because it just isn't that type of drama. 

 Not only do viewers seem to enjoy Chef, but critics also found satisfaction with the film. Rotten Tomatoes gave this movie an impressive 87%, and IMDb gave the movie a 7.3/10, which is actually much better than it sounds, since they are known for giving generally lower scores, but both of those scores don't feel high enough for this fabulous film. An outstanding 90% of Google users liked the movie, further helping to demonstrate that a wide variety of audiences enjoyed the movie. Chef is a brilliant movie that captures the crude essence of what it means to be a cook. 


The author's comments:

"What if I just cook you something?" - Carl Casper


Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 0 comments.