![]() Also, Chef is being marketed as a road trip movie, so sitting through the will-he-or-won’t-he of buying the food truck is maddeningly pointless. The pacing is off, and long sequences of food porn and freeways make it hard to connect with anything. This is probably his most honest and engaging performance in at least a decade.īut, like Favreau’s career choices, the movie quickly gets lost. John Leguizamo, especially, is surprisingly impressive as Casper’s sous chef. Getting to know these characters is the best part of the movie, hands down, so for the first 30 minutes or so you may be content to just sit and watch them improvise. In the best of those scenes, there’s a simplicity that’s engaging and almost reminiscent of Swingers. He clearly called in all his Iron Man favors to get a bunch super charming people together and then let them riff for as long as they like. ![]() The man is working with some Grade A meat. In an odd parallel of art (let’s be generous with that term here, OK?) imitating life, the film follows the same basic trajectory as Favreau’s career. At the end of the movie, the audience is presented with the tidiest little package, all loose ends tied up in a dainty bow. (It was, like, a really good sandwich, you guys.) On the drive back, lessons are learned, father-son bonding is achieved, and comeuppance is doled out (take that, Oliver Platt). While there, he eats a really good sandwich that inspires him to buy a food truck and travel the country serving Cuban food. He loses his job and his dignity before agreeing to play nanny to his own son on a trip to Florida with his ex-wife (Sofia Vergara). After a devastating review from an online critic (Oliver Platt), Casper has his 10-year-old son teach him what Twitter is and then proceeds to have a very public meltdown. Now, late in his career, he still has talent, but it’s being squashed by the owner of his restaurant, played by a possibly drunken or just very bored Dustin Hoffman. Casper is a Los Angeles chef who was once daring and innovative. The movie is clearly an autobiographical allegory, with Favreau casting himself as his own Mary Sue in the form of Carl Casper. That loss of artistry - the accusations that Favreau has sold out and gotten soft (figuratively and physically) - is the driving force behind Chef, which premiered this weekend at the South by Southwest Film Festival. ![]() He may have produced The Avengers, but his indie street cred of the ’90s is long gone. In watching those movies, you get absolutely no clue of who he is. Even his best work these days is in the form of huge tentpole films. For every Iron Man, there’s a Cowboys and Aliens. But for every Swingers, there’s a Couples Retreat. The thing is, as a writer, director, and actor, Favreau has put out a lot of great work. Jon Favreau has had a bit of a bumpy ride, hasn’t he? After a bangarang career launch, complete with the catchiest catchphrases of the 90s, he found his way into the blockbustery people-pleasing business.
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