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Critics Consensus: Chef's charming cast and sharp, funny script add enough spice to make this feel-good comedy a flavorful -- if familiar -- treat.
Critic Consensus: Chef's charming cast and sharp, funny script add enough spice to make this feel-good comedy a flavorful -- if familiar -- treat.
All Critics (181) | Top Critics (38) | Fresh (157) | Rotten (24)
It's such a treat to see such an endearing slice o' life in the middle of this blockbuster season. There's not a single comic book character in sight.
Chef is compelling, somewhat convincing and, according to many who know better than I, it's largely on trend.
Favreau has assembled a terrific cast for a road trip that is joyous and revelatory, all set to a great soundtrack ...
If "Chef" were a musical, you'd walk out humming the food - and you might end up doing that anyway.
Chef is so thin and bland it doesn't even inspire contempt.
Best of all is Favreau. Instead of mass-producing another superhero epic, he has given the overfed public a dish of right-sized comfort food. Whatever he cooks up in the future, it will be hard to top "Chef."
This is a lovely, funny, wonderfully acted film. The big problem is, it's an 80-minute movie that takes two hours. By the time you get to the real story, you're out of gas.
Jon Favreau has gone back to making the kind of movies he loves, and I graciously encourage him to continue his career with this amount of honesty and passion.
Passion oozes through this film in the same way it oozed the grilled cheese sandwich on the grill.
Using the vehicle of food, the story develops, albeit in a predictable way, that will make you laugh and give you hunger pangs at the same time.
It's a pacy, sometimes funny and inoffensive film in spite of Favreau.
Pleasing yet somewhat predictable, this film marks a sharp departure from Favreau's various blockbuster (*Iron Man*) films into something far simpler.
Never has food looked this delicious on the screen. If you watch this film hungry, you will probably starve, if you watch it full, you'll get hungry again. For a film about a chef trying to fulfill his dream of a food truck, that may be a no-brainer but actually plays a pretty big role here, because it's an important character trait for Favreau's chef. The great cast clearly had fun with his, quite a few dialogs feel improvised and very natural. The film also portrays a pretty realistic use of social media and the times we live in, if you'd wanna see that negatively you could say it's a long Twitter commercial. That'd be cynical, which the film is everything but. A light-hearted, lovable and entertaining feel good movie that makes you wanna eat delicious food and travel the US.
Super Reviewer
Competent and more or less charming, but the plot features little credible adversity and stakes that ring hollow. It's a slice of life, sure, but it just doesn't feel "real-life" enough. Insistent and borderline insipid.
This seems more like a project of pure egocentrism and self-indulgence from Jon Favreau, as he plays an idiot surrounded by gorgeous women like Sofia Vergara and Scarlett Johansson in a feel-good story that will only feel good to himself - really, it doesn't even have a real conflict.
A little-viewed gastronomical gem that was mercilessly mocked by "Esquire" magazine - a publication I ordinarily revere! Jon Favreau's not really my cup of French Onion Soup, but his "fat-strong" physicality really fits the character of media-maligned celebrity chef Carl Casper looking for his new culinary bliss. The little visual details (like the chef's knife tattooed on his inner forearm and his impressive speed-julienning skills) had me convinced that Favreau must be a real Epicurean. The food looks glorious, of course - a bon vivant's dream. The exposition goes on for too long though; the restaurant owner is so illogically pig-headed about not giving Casper free rein over the menu, which needlessly drags out the inciting showdown of chef vs. food critic. However, the father-son-mentor-apprentice-food-truck-road-trip-bonding movie that eventually begins is quite adorable and inspirational. There are small conflicts, but they are solved in realistic ways in good time, and the supporting gang of sous-chefs played by John Leguizamo and Bobby Cannavale adds some spicy ethnic flair. RDJ makes a very RDJ-esque cameo, ScarJo rocks a Bettie Page look, and Sofia Vergara's maternal instinct is impressively subdued.
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