Chef Reviews

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J. Olson
Cinemixtape
April 9, 2016
"Chef" might not be the return to form that Favreau and his fans were hoping for, but it's a gentle reminder of his charm, a charm that's gone unattended for far too long.
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5
Neil Miller
Film School Rejects
January 5, 2015
It's incredibly sweet, but still perplexing with its dashes of bitter.
Full Review | Original Score: C+
Anita Katz
San Francisco Examiner
January 5, 2015
The Hollywood ending, like too much of this promising film, suggests the recipe book.
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4
Nathan Southern
TV Guide
January 5, 2015
Writer/director Jon Favreau's gentle comedy-drama Chef is an odd duck -- a schizoid effort that never seems to grasp its own strengths.
Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4
Matthew Korfhage
Willamette Week
January 5, 2015
Imagine a movie written entirely by focus groups in Portland, Brooklyn and Silver Lake.
Full Review | Original Score: C-
Paul Chambers
Movie Chambers
November 12, 2014
Original Score: C-
David Edwards
Daily Mirror (UK)
June 27, 2014
[An] uneventful and overlong drama.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5
Top Critic
David Sexton
London Evening Standard
June 27, 2014
Here's Chef to show us all, for now and evermore, just what a vanity project really looks like. A public service, in its way.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5
Nigel Andrews
Financial Times
June 26, 2014
Co-stars John Leguizamo and Bobby Cannavale try hard to be funny to prop up a filmmaker-star barely trying at all.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5
Vanessa Farquharson
National Post
June 12, 2014
At almost two hours long, Chef is bound to leave some audiences feeling overstuffed.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/4
Top Critic
Ben Sachs
Chicago Reader
May 22, 2014
Chef is so thin and bland it doesn't even inspire contempt.
Full Review | Original Score: 1/4
Josh Bell
Las Vegas Weekly
May 22, 2014
The shapeless story takes way too long to get to Carl's big moment of change, and the tension in both his professional and personal lives feels forced.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5
Richard von Busack
MetroActive
May 21, 2014
On one level, harmless food porn. On another, a rant about an artist (Jon Favreau) who gets slammed by the Internet. A movie that looks like an indie, is packaged like an indie, but which is a softball televisionistic feel-good whine.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5
Dustin Putman
TheFilmFile.com
May 15, 2014
There is nothing wrong with "Chef" except that it is so ceaselessly, excessively pleasant. There is only so much humdrum harmony one can take before the film in question grows tedious.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/4
Top Critic
Rafer Guzman
Newsday
May 15, 2014
The movie's problems aren't small: It moves slowly, meanders everywhere and never quite arrives at a destination.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/4
Drew Taylor
The Playlist
May 11, 2014
To borrow one of the many lame metaphors it employs, Chef feels horribly undercooked.
Full Review | Original Score: D-
Monica Castillo
Movie Mezzanine
May 10, 2014
Chef is food porn with a gelatinous script and thinly drawn players propping it up
Full Review | Original Score: C-
Marshall Fine
Hollywood & Fine
May 9, 2014
A movie that manufactures its feel-good status without really earning it. There's nothing wrong with it that an injection of tension (or story) wouldn't improve.
Full Review
Top Critic
Richard Corliss
TIME Magazine
May 8, 2014
All these actors, and the audience too, deserved a better, tighter, more daring film. The movie meal that Favreau whips up is easy to sit through but hardly memorable.
Full Review
Top Critic
A.A. Dowd
AV Club
May 8, 2014
For Swingers fans, seeing Favreau make something small again might be worth it-even if the results are more appetizing in theory than in execution.
Full Review | Original Score: C+
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