Movie Review: Chef

This Chef’s menu card is different. And interesting. It is also a reflection that there are film makers out there who are willing to dare and be different. It is for the audience to now respond with responsibility if not full-throated appreciation. Not that the film is perfect, but it is daring, endearing and worth watching.

Roshan Kalra (Saif) can’t take criticism from a customer and is shown the door from a London restaurant. The Dangling Man has a divorced wife Radha (Padmapriya) and a son Arman (Svar Kamble) in God’s own country. Roshan returns to Kerala for a short sojourn with the family. It’s opportunity to fix the glue, repair the cracks and mend the tears. At his wits end, he is given a business idea by his wife’s friend (Milind Soman) to convert a abandoned double decker bus into a mobile restaurant. He rejects the proposal only to work on it with passion and success later. Arman believes that the relationship and the companionship will be permanent. Better equipped with the days of the world, Roshan is conscious of its transients. Director Menon finds typically cinematic solution to a well nuanced realistic dilemma. Thus fails the film. Never mind just though.

The film is rich elsewhere. The cast and the crew put in their everything to make the film worth watching. Even from the standpoint of novelty, the son-father relationship that was once so dramatically told from the times of Mughal – e - Azam and Rustom Sohrab has evolved wonderfully to the contemporaneous milieu. Probably this really reflects the famous song from Rustom Sohrab “yeh kaisi ajab daastan ho gayi hai, chupate chupate bayan ho rahi hai”.

The film also showcases the raw ability of Saif Ali Khan (till now exhibited in Omkara) but generally lost in the dust and din of mainstream – his mainstay.

This Chef deserves a good rating. The cuisine is well thought of. Some predicable ingredients notwithstanding, the presentation is good enough for order.