Chef : An overcooked dish that lacks the precision of proportioned ingredients including love

One of my most favorite movies to watch if I need to cheer myself up or just maybe watch something comfortable, wrapped in my blanket with a hot cup of coffee to keep me company that can be easily replaced with dark chocolate is ‘Chef’. Jon Favreau’s Chef. It’s one of those movies that has been made so intricate and tenderly which is also well thought out and generously loaded with dollops of love and oh my god the absolutely mouthwatering food. Chef had everything that worked for it starting with the chemistry and ending with well, chemistry.

Yes absolutely important in delicious food and electrifyimg love stories. The characters, the story line, the casting, the unfolding of the scenes and the connection of food to people lives was captured so well that it was surreal that Jon Favreau acted as well as directed that that beauty with such flawless execution.

To want to take something of that stature and recreate it for an audience that loves their food and movies maybe more than people in the other part of the world do, while keeping the heart of the story as it was meant to be kept is one, extremely brave and two, a terrible idea to begin with. But bravery always accompanies terrible ideas that morphs them into something so unbelievable spectacular that it would surprise its critics, but not the creator. However, this time Saif Ali khan would have to settle for a terrible idea, executed rather sloppily with no thought put into it what so ever and just live with that.

Starring Saif Ali Khan as Roshan Kalra, who ran away from home at the age of 15 to pursue his dream of becoming a Chef, something his father disapproved of, is today standing at the cross roads of his career basking in his previous glories but unable to keep up with the changing times and has allowed his ego to come in the way of his creativity. Divorced from wife Radha, played by Padmapriya Janakiraman and has a son Armaan who he eventually visits to spend some quality father and son time together during which Radha suggests that he should have his own restaurant and to start with a food truck.

Raja Krishna Menon’s Chef has been altered quite a bit and therefore can be in the right sense called as ‘‘being inspired’’ from the original. But that is the only right thing about it. The movie is an absolute disaster from the first scene as the conflict of the story line which is how the Chef is humiliated and its sheer intensity that is magnified in a social media world today, is the very basis for what follows through. And thus you are not connected with the character or feel empathized for him breaking your interest in the film. What you are in for is then a domino effect as there is no chemistry between Roshan, Radha or Armaan. The characters just don’t work.

They don’t depict a broken family that is still somehow connected to each other. And trust me, the love and passion that Carl Casper (Original Chef) feels towards his work, his food is unparalleled. It’s what keeps you hooked to the movie. How a father who is completely unaware of how powerful social media is and that it can make your career with the same speed as it catalyzed your fall, is made to be realized by his young son is such a delight to watch.

The Bollywood version of Chef has a lot of loose ends that are left for you to untangle, scenes that lack synergies or a rational progression for that matter, songs that are unnecessary with a running time of 133 mins that seems deadly slow and worse if your multiplex decides to throw in an interval for half hour you can only imagine my plight. Yes I’m not kidding. Half hour. So avoid Inox if possible. To add to that my favorite song ‘Tere Mere’ was never in the film. I have no clue what this new game the movie goers are subjected to is to ‘’find out, if it’s a part of the feature film or not.’’ It’s definitely not the experience I was signing up for, when I paid for the tickets.

As the second finally shows up on screen it does pick up pace which quickly fizzles out as the sheer pace of the film is being compromised with sentiments and emotional dialogues that don’t fit as they seem mechanical. Moving on to something good, it does feel like a lot of effort has been put into making the movie. The actors have given it an honest shot to be the characters they ought to be, but I feel like they have been shown the original and asked to emulate the same. Which I personally think is never a good idea as it will keep them away from putting in that character flaw or quirk that is required by an actor that brings the character to life and is central to it. All the good scenes are with the Roshan’s line chef, Nazrool played by Chandan Roy, be it with him and his boss or him an Alex the fiery Malyali driver portrayed by Dinesh Nair.

Chef is an honest, genuine plate of food that looks fabulous but lacks salt making it absolutely bland and all you can remember at the end of your meal, even though you appreciated the effort and the ingredients. Ironically, what it lacks is the crispness of the tapioca chips they seem it be serving at their food truck and soggy chips and a badly executed masterpiece is two things I just cannot get on board with.

So, if you have tickets for the film this weekend this would have just helped in bringing down your expectations to something that might match in the cinema hall, which is always a good thing and a silver lining by its self. But this silver lining will not be yours if you have watched the original and love it like I do. However, if you do not have tickets, I say you can avoid it all together and set up a date with your loved one and play the original that is available on so many movie streaming platforms while Star Movies loves to put it up every 15-20 days or so too. Because that is exactly what I am going to do this weekend is to re visit a movie I absolutely love and wash over this one with my favorite companions.