6.7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A veteran chef faces off against his restaurant group's new CEO, who wants to the establishment to lose a star from its rating in order to bring in a younger chef who specializes in molecular gastronomy.
Starring: Jean Reno, Michaël Youn, Raphaëlle Agogué, Julien Boisselier, Salomé StéveninForeign | 100% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
French: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Lots of official restaurant guides like Michelin and similar publications will be more than happy to recommend a stellar (and quite often exorbitantly priced) dining experience while in France, but I’d like to present a perhaps unexpected piece of “trip advisor” wisdom: check out a French truck stop if you ever get the chance. My wife and I made the perhaps insane decision to rent a car in Paris last year so that we could drive our sons to Normandy, where my late father had commanded a 9th Division battalion during the D-Day invasion. As the designated driver, I ironically needed a stiff drink after having navigated the patently frightening streets of France’s most densely populated urban environment, but I forsook that desire in the thankfully stronger desire to get my family to our destination in one piece. My passengers on the other hand were both thirsty and ravenous a couple of hours outside of Paris, and so we stopped at a fairly innocuous looking combo gas station, truck stop and aggregation of little dining boutiques and fast food vending machines. To claim that what we found was gastronomically revelatory might be stretching it a bit, but from both the prepackaged machines and from a little bakery that I personally stopped at, the food was most definitely a major step up from similar fare found at these kind of establishments in the good old United States. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that a self taught chef like Jacky Bonnot (Michaël Youn) could have been the guiding force behind the supposedly low rent fare we sampled that day. Bonnot may not have a ton of technical training, but he’s creative and intuitive, two things that tend to get him repeatedly fired from a series of increasingly more banal cooking jobs. When a series of improbable coincidences brings Jacky under the aegis of one of Paris’ most famous chefs, Alexandre Lagarde (Jean Reno), the stage (and/or table) is set for some whimsical adventures and some very appetizing looking food.
Le Chef is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Media Group with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Shot digitally with the Arri Alexa Plus, Le Chef looks fantastic in high definition, with a clear, sharp and stable image that makes the most of both its Parisian setting (as well as some outlying areas) as well as supposedly more mundane elements like the plating of food. Detail and fine detail are often exceptional, to the point that things like beads of water separating from a creamy sauce can be spotted. Contrast is also very strong, clearly delineating between the crisp whites of the chefs' uniforms and some lighter backgrounds. The occasional outdoor photography can also offer very good depth of field. Colors are accurate looking if not overly vivid. There are no issues with artifacts or other problems.
While Le Chef is granted a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track on this release, once again Cohen has made the peculiar authoring decision to have this Blu-ray default to the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 track also included. That said, the lossless track provides ample support for the film's dialogue and the charmingly ebullient score by Nicola Piovani. There's not a whirwind of surround activity here, but nuanced placement of ambient environmental effects and Piovani's score help to expand the soundstage, providing a very lifelike ambience. Fidelity is excellent and there are no problems of any kind to report.
Food is big business in case you haven't noticed, and Le Chef has some fun gently skewering the more pretentious aspects of this ever expanding industry. The interplay between Reno and Youn is quite winning, even if Youn overplays his comedic hand a few times. Cohen has a nice feel for character, and that helps his screenplay coast past some of the speed bumps that stem from predictable plotting. Technical merits on this release are very strong, and Le Chef comes Recommended.
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