Chef

Chef marks a welcome return to small-scale cinema for Jon Favreau, who wrote and starred in the independent films Swingers and Made in the '90s but went on to direct blockbusters like Iron Man and Cowboys & Aliens in the Aughts. In his new comedy/drama, Favreau plays a middle-aged chef named Carl, a brilliant culinary artist who's less adept as a husband and father (although in real life, he would be considered pretty great in those departments too). When Carl loses his job after a Twitter feud with a food critic, he takes a road trip to Miami with his son Percy (Emjay Anthony) and his trusty sous-chef  Martin (John Leguizamo) in order to get back to his culinary roots.

It’s difficult to dislike Chef, a film that goes out of its way to be likeable. We're given limitless reasons to feel warmly towards Carl, his son, his buddy, his staff, his wife (Sofía Vergara), her ex-husband (Robert Downey, Jr.), and even his ostensible antagonists, a philistine boss (Dustin Hoffman) and the pompous food critic (Oliver Platt). There are glorious shots of delicious-looking food, and plenty of catchy tunes that help carry the picture along. But although Chef is an unobjectionable film, it's genial to a fault, and it serves up nothing that we can really sink our teeth into. It's a story about a guy with a great life who bounces back from a minor setback and goes on to have an even greater life. There's a complete absence of conflict and emotional stakes, and only a few tepid laughs. These would be pretty meager pickings for even a 80 minute film, but Chef pads its running time out to almost two full hours, and though the film goes down easy, these are empty calories.