Burnt review

Title: Burnt
Director: John Wells
Cast: Bradley Cooper
         Sienna Miller
         Daniel Bruhl
         Emma Thompson
Certificate: 15
Runtime: 101 minutes

Burnt tells the story of Adam Jones; the culinary equivalent to Mick Jagger or Kurt Cobain (probably somewhere in between the two). A reformed alcoholic and drug addicted chef who wants to open up a prestigious restaurant in the heart of London chasing after his third Michelin star. This looked fantastic from the trailers and the subject matter seemed to be that of one that is a bit of a rarity for cinema, a film about cooking. Unfortunately, what follows is a fairly tasteless and bland 100 minutes of wasted potential.

Bradley cooper takes the lead role of Jones, throwing together a mixture of Marlon Brando and Gordon Ramsey, riding a motorbike in a leather jacket just to throw dishes around when inside the kitchen. From being arrogant in the face of his counsellor, to humiliating his staff, Cooper gives us a fairly cliche performance of a top tier chef. This isn't to say that his performance is in anyway bad, but it just seems like there was a missed opportunity to take some risks with the character. Bringing me to my next point...

The film is so damn predictable. Every twist, every love story, all the characters seem copied and pasted from some sort of kitchen based soap opera. The love story that could be seen a mile off wasn't even at all fleshed out, it was just there and a certain twist that happens about two thirds into the film seems completely out of the blue but in no way shocking because it was clear from the start. Given the characters background of alcoholism and substance abuse, a mental breakdown scene was always gonna happen and sure as hell it does happen... shocking right?

I was actually talking to the person I went to view this film with, and stated that the film could have been so much more enjoyable if they paid closer attention to the details of cooking. For example, there is a whole montage revolved around trying to perfect a fish dish (yay it rhymes), but nothing is shown or explained whilst they are cooking. The film opens with Bradley Cooper narrating and I just feel like they could've kept that narration going through some scenes in the kitchen to really emphasise the love for cooking and the passion that is evident for this food. Just Cooper stating that he should add a certain ingredient or cook it in a particular way may have been enough, but I would've loved something similar to the opening sequence of the Social Network (where Mark hacks into all the campus face books) but with food.

To be honest theres really not much I could say about the film. It is a well performed but al round forgettable feature that won't be winning any awards any time soon. If this is the beginning of the awards season, I have the feeling we will be seeing a vast improvement.

6/10