Burnt: Where Bradley Cooper Learned to be Gordon Ramsay

Thanks to iTunes, we rented Burnt, starring Bradley Cooper as a rock star bad boy chef who refuses to play by the rules. He has two coveted Michelin stars from his days in Paris, but apparently his reckless alcoholism, drug abuse, and womanizing cost him his career. We begin the film with him finishing serving his penance of shucking 1 million oysters in Louisiana – a job he promptly departs without notice upon the millionth oyster shucked. The finish line of his redemption is his third star. Essentially, the same thing Helen Mirren wanted in The Hundred Foot Journey.

The story is interesting, and the pacing is good. Mario Batali apparently served as the executive consultant for the cooking, and Gordon Ramsay served as an executive producer of the film. That being said, I think a chef wrote the dialogue for the film. The lines were stilted information dumps rather than realistic conversations between fully realized characters. Two examples of actual dialogue in this movie:

Omar Sy’s character, Michel, to Cooper’s Adam Jones, “When I was your sous chef, at Jean Luc’s, we were like brothers.” I guess this was in case Jones forgot where he knew this guy from?

Another, Uma Thurman’s restaurant critic to Cooper’s Jones, “I say to myself, Simone. You’re a lesbian. Why did you sleep with Adam Jones?” Because she needs to tell herself, and him, that she’s a lesbian? As if neither of them knew it themselves?

Similarly, there was a scene where his new sous chef, played by Sienna Miller, proceeds to tell Jones that his cooking is outdated by about five years (presumably the time of his penance? It isn’t clear). She then elects to teach Jones about the new hot thing in cooking, sous vide. She explains the technique of it and why it is done. The sous chef is teaching the rock star about sous vide.

I can barely scramble an egg and yet I know what sous vide is.

There is a fair amount of this in the movie. Things that should be clear to the characters in the scene are spelled out as if to a first grader to ensure that the viewing public is on the same page. But it’s done with all the precision of a sledge hammer, and it really pulled me out of the movie.

That being said, it has an interesting story to tell, even if it was told better in Favreau’s Chef.

Actually, now that I think of it, I do hate it. Chef is twice the movie, dealing with the same ideas, and doing it better. Screw this.

She Says: This was chosen as part of the 99 cents rental deal, and I was happy to have a new movie to watch. We watched it outside on our deck, and I kept cringing, as this movie seemed to repeat the word “fuck” very loudly, and very frequently. I think our neighbors may hate us. The food scenes and plates were captivating and left me with a desire to start cooking again. Maybe we will enroll with Blue Apron for a few months to try our hand at some gourmet recipes. Doubt I’ll be trying the sous vide method any time soon, but I will watch this movie again when it is on HBO for free.