Ironically, writer/director/star Jon Favreau's return to smaller, "Independent" filmmaking is every bit as shallow and formulaic as the big-budget popcorn movies he's been making for the better part of the last decade.
Possessing an almost pathological need to please, 'Chef' jauntily lumbers along for most of its bloated 2 hour running time, checking off nearly every cliché box along the way while never even pretending to create any doubt about its happy outcome.
You'd have to be very cynical to hate the earnest and well intended 'Chef', but likewise you'd have to be awfully naïve to buy into its hokum.
Possessing an almost pathological need to please, 'Chef' jauntily lumbers along for most of its bloated 2 hour running time, checking off nearly every cliché box along the way while never even pretending to create any doubt about its happy outcome.
You'd have to be very cynical to hate the earnest and well intended 'Chef', but likewise you'd have to be awfully naïve to buy into its hokum.