Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Le Chef Blu-ray Movie Review

Slightly undercooked but still tasty.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 1, 2014

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.

Jacky’s somewhat uptight demeanor, at least with regard to the food he cooks, is on display from the first moment of Le Chef, when he berates two customers for not giving him enough time to prepare a convoluted dish and (perhaps even worse) wanting red wine instead of white with the fish entrée. That gets him fired, of course, the latest in a long line of such severances, but not the last. His attempt to introduce haute cuisine to what looks like, well, a truck stop goes over like a ton of bricks, or at least a cup of fries, which the patrons insist come with any and every choice of foodstuff. Jacky might be content to simply coast, knowing that his culinary skills are right, but he has an incredibly pregnant girlfriend named Beatrice (Raphaëlle Agogué ) who is thinking of their life together as a family and the need for someone to be a bread winner rather than a bread baker, especially after she’s out of commission with a newborn.

Jacky ends up painting a rather palatial old folks’ home to bring in some much needed moolah, a job which brings him into contact both with the cooking staff there and, ultimately, with celebrity chef Lagarde. Lagarde is an old school master, one whose iconic restaurant is hemorrhaging money due to Lagarde’s abhorrence for nouvelle cuisine or cutting costs with regard to ingredients. Lagarde has recently found himself up against the unctuous son of his former partner, a kid named Stanislas Matter (Julien Boisselier) who wants to ship the venerable chef off to some country wayside and turn his Parisian restaurant into a hipster joint. If Matter can get Cargo Lagarde’s vaunted multi-star rating downgraded, that will give him a contractual ability to get rid of the chef, and Lagarde is starting to feel his days may be numbered.

Out of this tenuous marriage of convenience Le Chef attempts, and to a degree succeeds, at building a traditional farcical turn of events where the dueling styles of Lagarde and Jacky only temporarily detour them from helping each other out. Jacky may have big ideas for how food should be prepared, but Lagarde is perhaps better equipped to school Jacky in the arts of dealing with Beatrice and, ultimately, becoming a father. Writer-director Daniel Cohen keeps things nicely brisk, with a couple of more outré moments thrown into the mix (including Lagarde and Jacky impersonating an Asian couple in order to “anonymously” sample a trendy joint).

While the material here is somewhat hackneyed, it’s played so pleasantly and is often so scenic (including the food) that things go down like a nicely seasoned appetizer, if not exactly a three course banquet. Youn has a kind of Roberto Benigni-esque quality which some may find slightly annoying after a while, but it’s really fun to see Reno in a relatively more avuncular role. His Lagarde has the imperious attitude of a Gordon Ramsay (who perhaps only coincidentally graces this week’s Variety Magazine as an example of a “billion dollar brand,” certainly evidence of what a big money enterprise contemporary cuisine can be), but he’s also surprisingly vulnerable, especially after he realizes he may be getting pushed aside whether or not he wants to be.

Le Chef’s original French title is actually Comme un chef, which translates to (more or less) “like a chef,” indicating Jacky’s desire to join the ranks of legendary food creators. That kind of inner fire helps to invigorate some of the film’s more pat comedic elements. Often more wryly amusing than laugh out loud hilarious, Le Chef may not deserve a top rank from Michelin, but in a world filled with American style fast food, it’s sweetly delicious if not overly nourishing.

Le Chef Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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.

Le Chef Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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.

Le Chef Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:11)


• "Two Chefs" Featurette (1080p; 24:25) is of course really entitled Comme deux chefs and profiles the two stars and their roles. There's some amusing footage of the actors trying to learn to really cook under the tutelage of real chefs.


• Interviews (1080p; 7:36) include Daniel Cohen, Michael Youn and Jean Reno.


• Bloopers (1080p; 4:12)


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 3:55)

Le Chef Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.