Le Chef

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Daniel Cohen/Starring: Jean Reno and Michael Youn

Not to be confused with Jon Favreau's Chef, Daniel Cohen's film is as light as the American counterpart but not as tasty. Le Chef falls into the French Farce genre, whose quality over the last decade has been very uneven. The French make such powerful dramas with complicated characters so it's puzzling when their comedies parrot the worst of Hollywood.

A film like Le Chef lives or dies with its cast, since the writing is rather tame and bland. An infant could plot a course through the storyline without error or much effort. It is fortunate that two actors with charm, Jean Reno and Michael Youn, help keep the film buoyant.

Michael Youn plays Jacky Bonnot, a chef whose lofty culinary standards often clash with various restaurant managers for whom he serves. The operative word is various, for Jacky can't seem to hold a job very long, which causes his pregnant wife much anxiety. Jean Reno plays Alexandre Lagarde; a chef of fame and high regard whose restaurant has enjoyed three-star status for fifteen years. Lagarde's ranking and job are threatened by the CEO of the group that owns the restaurant; who continually threatens to replace him with a chef who specializes in molecular gastronomy. In his private life, Lagarde's relationship with his beautiful daugher becomes brittle when he is unable to devote time or proper moral support for her during her oral literary thesis preparation.

Before long, the two chefs are thrown together by a chance meeting at the retirement home where Jacky paints window-frames. Lagarde offers Jacky an unpaid position as an assistant; a proposal he must keep from his wife. The Bonnot's forthcoming child and the couple's shaky financial predicament add some tension to the proceedings.

In awe of the famous chef, Jacky becomes Lagarde's assistant on a widely-watched T.V. cooking show and in his kitchen. Lagarde sees that Jacky can run his kitchen effectively; his leadership skills very much in evidence. The show is also given a boost when the two bicker about the finer points of food preparation, which goes over well with the viewers.

When the CEO learns that two prominent food critics who prefer molecular cooking plan to visit the restaurant, he threatens Lagarde with job-dismissal and the loss of his comfortable apartment if the restaurant loses a rating star. The CEO's threat is part of a ploy to bring in a younger chef who specializes in molecular cooking. It doesn't help that neither Lagarde nor Jacky show any enthusiasm or passion for the trendy cooking technique, which involves the use of chemicals in food preparation. The ubiquity of liquid nitrogen in cooking and eating--among other chemicals--is kind of a running gag in the film.

I didn't laugh once during the film, nor did anyone else who occupied the theater, which is too bad because the film is likeable, as are the two stars. It is miraculous that a lack of laughter didn't translate to an excruciating experience. Though Le Chef wants to be a light comedy, it never really tries hard enough for laughs, save for one scene in which the two chefs disguise themselves as Japanese royalty to infiltrate Lagarde's young rival's molecular-cuisine restaurant. While Jacky dons a geisha-girl get-up, Lagarde wears a samorai-like coif and robes. It isn't funny and stumbles ever-so-close to being offensive. It manages to be mildly-amusing but only mildly.

The film proceeds along as one would expect. No loose ends in this comedy, so no mysteries persist as to what becomes of both Jacky and Lagarde's familial troubles. The only surprise is the climax, but it's only a surprise if you've been asleep the previous hour and a half.

Michael Youn has a very likeable face, which enables him to accrue much sympathy while I wish someone would write a truly funny film for Jean Reno, whose comedic talents are very conspicuous. If I didn't laugh, I also wasn't bored the way one can be with so many inane Hollywood comedies. Le Chef, to risk using a cooking metaphor, is the promise of delicious cake that fails to rise when heated. One is left picking at the remains, hoping for something satisfying but regretting its unrealized potential.