CHEF BOLLYWOOD MOVIE REVIEW

Director : Raja Krishna Menon
Music : Raghu Dixit and Amaal Mallik
Lyrics : Ankur Tewari and Rashmi Virag
Starring : Saif Ali Khan, Padmapriya Janakiraman, Dhanish Karthik, Dinesh Prabhakar, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Neha Saxena, Svar Kamble, Shyan Munshi and Lynn Marocola

 Story: Roshan Kalra(Saif) is a three-star Michelin chef who gets fired from New York's Gulli restaurant after he punches a customer. Forced to take a break, he flies to Kochi to spend time with his son, Armaan (Svar) and his estranged wife Radha Menon (Padmapriya). It's a fruitful trip because he manages to mend broken family ties. In a bid to help him get his mojo back, his wife suggests he put up his own food truck and begin afresh.

The story kicks off in Chandni Chowk as a young Roshan Kalra dreams of being a cook. When his father coaxes him towards more academic pursuits he runs away to become a high-flying Chef in New York. But soon he's thrown out of his job and he ends up back home trying to make amends with his ex-wife and son. The stint back home helps Roshan (Saif Ali Khan) get in touch with his lost zest for cooking. But for a man who's supposed to be a celebrated and renowned chef, Roshan does absolutely no cooking in his restaurant kitchen. He shouts, he yells and he even punches people in the face, but he doesn't cook. When he does get down to cooking, scenes show him making fettucine pasta on several occasions. And he makes tomato chutney and then a roti based pizza. That's it. The original Chef with Jon Favreau had him carving a pig, cooking a four-course menu, dishing out crazy fast food on his food truck, not just that he sliced, diced and grated everything from zucchini to cheese to meat like a pro. But Saif in this film boils pasta, slices onions and tomatoes and kneads dough. There's very little effort to bring any insight into cooking or the gastronomic quirks of India.

Leading the performances is Saif Ali Khan. The actor is in brilliant form, both as the hot-headed 'menopausal' man and later as the caring father/husband who is keen to cement ties. Padmapriya is like luscious chocolate who leaves you with a craving. Svar is a preteen you can identify with. Sobhita Dhulipala (Vinnie), who shows up briefly as Roshan's co-worker and friend is good.

The film takes you on a fun-filled road trip with food and family as the focus. There are few dramatic confrontations but Ritesh Shah's dialogues are smart and witty. The pace though is a bit slow; the feeling is similar to the one where you are sitting famished at the lunch table and the order arrives after a part of your hunger has dissipated.

First thing first, the writers Ritesh Shah, Suresh Nair and Raja Krishna Menon make a decent adaptation but it's not that delicious and lip smacking as the original and young Roshan's unbeatable cravings for that high-calorie chola bhatura. The movie begins with Saif's voice over which describes how his life was ruled by his nose that could smell good flavours and the aura of a well-cooked food decided his ambition in life to be a cook. How rightly a wise man has said, 'Well began is half done' but surprisingly over here, Saif's entry and the tiff with the customer in New York comes all of a sudden, demanding special powers of acceptance. The original had had an amusing episode of Jon Favreau getting into a battle with a food critic on social media which goes viral. The critic's sarcastic comment that Jon is overweight cause he has to eat the leftovers returned by customers is quite funny. Raja Krishna Menon's CHEF lacks that tadka and just by saying that the protagonist is from Delhi, the aggression isn't justified.