Netflix And Chill: Burnt (2015)

Do you remember when Chef was released back in 2014? It was a delightful little film about someone rediscovering their passion for the thing they do best, and it seemed to have been made by someone rediscovering their passion for the thing they do best. There were moments of fiery anger, and moments of frustration, but it delighted many viewers because it was, at heart, a very sweet and optimistic tale about reconnecting with loved ones, and the world at large, via a passion for food.

Burnt came out a year later. Whatever the intention, and I may be a bit kinder towards it now that I know Steven Knight is one of two people who helped to co-write the screenplay, it feels like a cynical and soulless attempt to rework Chef. If that film was the comforting plate of Cubanos, this is a more expensive plate throwing various ingredients together in a way that simply doesn't make you salivate. There's probably some infused foam on the side.

Bradley Cooper plays Adam Jones, a chef who once had the world at his feet. He disappeared though, after burning many bridges with his addiction issues and his bad behaviour. Now he's back. That doesn't mean that everyone will forgive him, and he still has some debts to pay, but he wants to put a team together good enough to help him get a third Michelin star. Looked at favourably, this is a film about someone figuring out how his behaviour affects others, and how everyone needs to help one another on a journey for perfection. But it's really just about a chef who spectacularly ruined his reputation and career now believing that he deserves to be crowned as one of the very best of the best.

Knight and Michael Kalesniko get a lot of the kitchen chatter right, and they mix in enough mildly interesting characters to help the 101-minute runtime pass by quickly enough. They falter when it comes to the passion though. One or two moments try to remind us of why great chefs love to cook, but they don't work. It's much more believable to simply view Cooper's character as a bloody-minded and hyper-focused narcissist who is ready to throw a tantrum any time things don't go perfectly for him.

It's notable, although perhaps entirely coincidental, that this is the last feature film directed by John Wells, who has spent most of the last decade helming episodes of some fantastic TV shows (including the highly-praised The Pitt). Maybe he also wanted some time enjoying meals made with love instead of meals made to boost someone's ego. Again, it may just be entirely coincidental.

Cooper is fine in the role of Jones, I guess, but is unable to soften him enough to make him a central character that you really care about. Things will either go well or not. Either way, it never feels as if he is the one with the most to lose. Sienna Miller plays a very capable chef, Helene, who suffers throughout the movie by becoming more and more like our lead. Other chefs are played by Omar Sy (who is pretty great), Sam Keeley (who doesn't get enough to do), and Matthew Rhys (playing a discontented rival). Daniel Brühl is good in the role of Tony, the man who ends up bank-rolling the latest restaurant and team of staff, but he allows himself to be far too easily used by someone he should have said good riddance to a long time ago. Uma Thurman is sorely underused, as is Emma Thompson, Alicia Vikander, and Lily James, and, perhaps worst of all, none of the featured dishes ever look like stars in their own right. 

The famous saying goes that "if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen", but Burnt proves that you may want to stay out of that area if you also can't stand anything lukewarm and lacking any real flavour. The supporting cast all try hard enough to save this from being a complete waste of your time, but they can't overcome the problem of such an uninteresting core premise and central character. Chef made me hungry for both the food and the passion on display throughout. Burnt made me want to avoid over-priced and over-complicated menus made by narcissistic technicians who often forget simple pleasures in their pursuit of what they perceive to be greatness. 

4/10

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Noir-vember: Serenity (2019)

Serenity is, in a way, kind of wonderful. It's terrible, and I really can't think of anything I've seen with worse plotting that hasn't been buried in the recesses of the darker pockets of the internet, but it's the kind of terrible that makes you wonder why nobody took people aside at any stage in the film-making process and said "look, this isn't working, we need to start over".

Matthew McConaughey is Baker Dill, a fishing boat captain who enjoys a fairly tranquil life on a small island. He's obsessed with catching a large yellowfin tuna, which he names "Justice", and sometimes even moves paying customers out of his way when the fish comes within catching distance. Things take a turn for the worse when Baker's ex-wife, Karen (Anne Hathaway), approaches him with an offer. She wants him to kill her abusive new husband (Jason Clarke), an act that would improve the life of both her and their son.

Written and directed by Steven Knight, who previously surprised me by making a film about a man driving his car and planning a major concrete transporting job (Locke), this reflects poorly on him, and also everyone involved with it. The script is a mess, with the best moments coming from the scenes that provide unintended laughs, and the direction complements it perfectly. Knight doesn't settle on any style. If you want something dark and shady to match the mystery at the heart of things then you're going to be disappointed. Similarly, anyone hoping to at least get a hot and sweat-soaked thriller reminiscent of Body Heat and The Mean Season will also end up disappointed. In fact, it's hard not to think of anyone who won't be disappointed by this.

The cast at least look as if they're having fun, for the most part. Hathaway is the one with the least to do, despite how she sets the chain of events in motion, and suffers from a script not savvy enough to either drag her down to a sleazier level or keep her above it all. McConaughey is enjoyably over the top, more invested in catching one big sea creature than anyone else I can think of (aside from Ahab or Quint, obviously). Clarke's character is so awful that it's fun to watch him swagger about onscreen and act oblivious to the immediate dislike that others have for him. Djimon Hounsou works well in a supporting role, he's the first mate to McConaughey's character, but the same cannot be said of Jeremy Strong or Diane Lane, who is completely wasted in the couple of scenes that she has.

There may well be individual aspects of this movie that some people end up enjoying. Maybe you like the standard noir idea at the heart of the plot. Maybe you just like McConaughey and/or Hathaway. Maybe you like seeing footage of people on a boat as they wait for a fish to take some bait. Whatever you find to enjoy here, I defy you to hold on to that enjoyment as everything gets sillier and sillier in the second half, leading to a finale that it's pretty much impossible to care about.

I have spent a lot of time since watching this movie trying to think up ways of how I could have turned it into something worse. I am so far drawing a blank.

3/10

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Eastern Promises (2007)

David Cronenberg followed up the magnificent A History Of Violence by reteaming with leading man Viggo Mortensen and creating something that works as both a companion piece and also a flipside to their preceding movie. A here and now of violence, if you will.

Events are set in motion by a young girl who gives birth to a child, but dies in the process. Naomi Watts plays a nurse named Anna, present at the birth and worried about the future of the newborn child. She takes a diary that belonged to the deceased girl, finds out that it's in Russian and sets out to get it translated, in an effort to find a family for the baby. Unfortunately, in her attempt to do a good deed she finds herself mixing with some bad people. Bad Russian gangster types. The big boss is Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), messy situations are created by his son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), and everything gets cleaned up by Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen), who constantly refers to him as just a driver. As Anna gets more involved with these people she puts herself, and others, in a very dangerous situation.

Unhurried, unfussy and completely unglamorous, Eastern Promises is a typically cool look at some unpleasantness by Cronenberg, working from a fantastic script by Steven Knight. Set in London, he matches his usual style with the great cinematography by Peter Suschitzky with outstanding results. London isn't the collection of buildings scattered around Big Ben and Notting Hill that it so often is in other movies. It's simply a big city, a place full of areas and buildings that you could pass by every day without a suspicion of what has gone on there.

But it's the acting that really lifts this up to a fantastic viewing experience. Naomi Watts is very good in her role, believably strong in her eagerness to do the right thing while also visibly unnerved. Armin Mueller-Stahl is great as the typical, cold gangster boss and Vincent Cassel is always entertaining as Kirill, the son who can never seem to do any right for doing wrong. The film belongs to Viggo Mortensen, however, and his performance is almost perfect. Okay, there may be problems with the accent to those who have a better ear than I do, but it's not too bad. Not too bad at all. His dialogue is also backed up by a physical performance arguably better than the one he delivered in A History Of Violence. Able support also comes from Sinead Cusack, Jerzy Skolimowski and even Tamer Hassan, in a small role that still allows him to feature in the most memorable sequence in the entire film.

Although the movie has quite a few moments of violence in it, none of them are flippant, "easy" movie deaths. This is a film about every bloodletting sending a message, about every body telling a story (be it through tattoos or fatal wounds) and about how much some people will risk in order to make a difference for the better. It's all that, PLUS it's a fantastic gangster movie AND it has one of the best and boldest fight scenes set in a bathhouse since . . . . . . . . . . . well, since ever.

9/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eastern-Promises-Blu-ray/dp/B0010VXMQW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1370799643&sr=8-2&keywords=eastern+promises