Burnt

November 3, 2015

Jays Rating:
Actors:

Movies and T.V. shows about cooking seem to be the latest craze and John Wells directs a culinary arts film that hits the spot in the comedy drama, Burnt. Adam Jones (Bradley Cooper) is a talented but arrogant chef who lost his restaurant in Paris because of drugs, booze, and women. He is also a perfectionist and to punish himself, he spent the next two years shucking oysters in New Orleans. (Okay that sounds kind of ridiculous.) He swore off drugs, booze, and well, anyway, he’s been free of drugs and alcohol for a couple years (I don’t know about women) and he wants to rebuild his reputation as a phenomenal chef. His goal is to gain his third Michelin star, then move on to Paris and open up his own restaurant. Adam goes to London and convinces and old colleague named Tony (Daniel Gruhl) to allow him to take over his new restaurant as master chef. He assembles a restaurant staff including souse chef Helene (Sienna Miller) with whom he begins a relationship by the end of the film. In the meantime, he has to do weekly alcohol and drug prevention sessions with therapist Dr. Rosshilde (Emma Thompson), gently manipulate food critic Simone Forth (Uma Thurman), fight off drug dealers, and outshine rival chefs. Okay let’s begin with the high point, which of course, begins with Bradley Cooper and the acting by the rest of the cast. Their performances were so realistic they made me feel like I was actually in the kitchen of a fancy restaurant – even though I couldn’t see the food. (A scratch and sniff for all the gourmet food would have been great, but all I could smell was burnt popcorn.) One of the problems with this movie is Bradley Cooper’s character is so unlikable it’s hard to empathize with him. He is so rude to everyone it seems to hurt the chemistry between Cooper and Miller. I enjoyed all the colorful characters but they came and left the story so quickly it was difficult to get to know them. This is a good film, but I’ll stick to watching the food network and I’m giving it a B- rating.

This movie has been given an R rating by the MPAA