Netflix And Chill: Burnt (2015)

Do you remember when Chef was released back in 2014? It was a delightful little film about someone rediscovering their passion for the thing they do best, and it seemed to have been made by someone rediscovering their passion for the thing they do best. There were moments of fiery anger, and moments of frustration, but it delighted many viewers because it was, at heart, a very sweet and optimistic tale about reconnecting with loved ones, and the world at large, via a passion for food.

Burnt came out a year later. Whatever the intention, and I may be a bit kinder towards it now that I know Steven Knight is one of two people who helped to co-write the screenplay, it feels like a cynical and soulless attempt to rework Chef. If that film was the comforting plate of Cubanos, this is a more expensive plate throwing various ingredients together in a way that simply doesn't make you salivate. There's probably some infused foam on the side.

Bradley Cooper plays Adam Jones, a chef who once had the world at his feet. He disappeared though, after burning many bridges with his addiction issues and his bad behaviour. Now he's back. That doesn't mean that everyone will forgive him, and he still has some debts to pay, but he wants to put a team together good enough to help him get a third Michelin star. Looked at favourably, this is a film about someone figuring out how his behaviour affects others, and how everyone needs to help one another on a journey for perfection. But it's really just about a chef who spectacularly ruined his reputation and career now believing that he deserves to be crowned as one of the very best of the best.

Knight and Michael Kalesniko get a lot of the kitchen chatter right, and they mix in enough mildly interesting characters to help the 101-minute runtime pass by quickly enough. They falter when it comes to the passion though. One or two moments try to remind us of why great chefs love to cook, but they don't work. It's much more believable to simply view Cooper's character as a bloody-minded and hyper-focused narcissist who is ready to throw a tantrum any time things don't go perfectly for him.

It's notable, although perhaps entirely coincidental, that this is the last feature film directed by John Wells, who has spent most of the last decade helming episodes of some fantastic TV shows (including the highly-praised The Pitt). Maybe he also wanted some time enjoying meals made with love instead of meals made to boost someone's ego. Again, it may just be entirely coincidental.

Cooper is fine in the role of Jones, I guess, but is unable to soften him enough to make him a central character that you really care about. Things will either go well or not. Either way, it never feels as if he is the one with the most to lose. Sienna Miller plays a very capable chef, Helene, who suffers throughout the movie by becoming more and more like our lead. Other chefs are played by Omar Sy (who is pretty great), Sam Keeley (who doesn't get enough to do), and Matthew Rhys (playing a discontented rival). Daniel Brühl is good in the role of Tony, the man who ends up bank-rolling the latest restaurant and team of staff, but he allows himself to be far too easily used by someone he should have said good riddance to a long time ago. Uma Thurman is sorely underused, as is Emma Thompson, Alicia Vikander, and Lily James, and, perhaps worst of all, none of the featured dishes ever look like stars in their own right. 

The famous saying goes that "if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen", but Burnt proves that you may want to stay out of that area if you also can't stand anything lukewarm and lacking any real flavour. The supporting cast all try hard enough to save this from being a complete waste of your time, but they can't overcome the problem of such an uninteresting core premise and central character. Chef made me hungry for both the food and the passion on display throughout. Burnt made me want to avoid over-priced and over-complicated menus made by narcissistic technicians who often forget simple pleasures in their pursuit of what they perceive to be greatness. 

4/10

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Netflix And Chill: All Quiet On The Western Front (2022)

I often get in trouble for my stance on military life, and the automatic respect afforded to those in uniform who are enforcing the will of politicians and rich businessmen (soldiers and police, mainly). I do respect individuals who have made efforts to do their best for others in a role that sometimes asks them to forget that they are encountering other humans in their main interactions, but it's not automatically given. Just look at the state of the world right now - note, for future reference, we're currently just over a year on from Russia invading Ukraine and having us all worried that it will end with an act of absolute lunacy - and think of how different it would be if the bravest soldiers refused to act automatically on orders given to them. That might hurry things along to the use of long-range, even nuclear, weaponry, you might think. Yes, but think of how much braver someone needs to be to refuse a dictatorial maniac who wants someone helping him to launch missiles. I believe they would know that it would mean the end of their life, and every subsequent next person in line would need to be even braver, but doing the right thing is rarely the same as taking the easy option. 

We see the best that soldiers can do when they help deliver emergency aid, when they present themselves as examples of the best and kindest kind of patriots. We don't see the best of them when they're in battle, particularly when that battle is due to the greed of one or two madmen who want to move borders and swallow up the assets of those they can overcome. Films have always struggled to show this, the dehumanisation of men that turns them into more effective fighting soldiers and the insanity and horror of throwing those who have barely reached adulthood into a mincer, meat to be slopped into the blood-soaked and hazy hellscape of a battlefield. Some have worked better than others, but it's almost impossible to make a war tale both cinematic and suitably condemnatory of the whole situation.

All Quiet On The Western Front (based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, and filmed a number of times before, although I have sadly neither read the source material or seen any other film version yet) gives it a better go than most. I was halfway through this 148-minute movie when I wondered if I could make it to the end. Not that the pace was dragging, nor was it weak in any department. I was finding it too difficult to watch. The constant mounting of horrors that couldn't be escaped, the cacophony of weaponry, the excruciating pain of the deaths (whether in the sheer volume or the individual moments showing how long it can take). It was all becoming unbearable, despite clearly being nowhere close to the experience of actually being a soldier put into those situations. In terms of reminding you of what it must take to be in the midst of battle, few films, if any, come close to making the same impact as All Quiet On The Western Front. And, yes, that includes the best war films you are already thinking of right now.

Viewers follow the journey of Paul (Felix Kammerer) as he signs up for an active role in the military, faking a signature to pretend that he has the permission of his parents. There are one or two moments of good cheer and camaraderie, and then the reality starts to sink in. Other characters come and go, and you might already suspect why that is, but Paul goes through a wide variety of wartime experiences: battling a physical enemy, battling hunger, and battling to hold on to his nerve as he has to force himself through one trauma after another.

Director Edward Berger, who also wrote the superb script with Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell, has delivered something here that I think might be as timely as it is flawless. It is not only deserving of all the praise it has been getting, it's worth more. This is another very strong contender for the best film of 2022, which means I have to slightly rearrange my list AGAIN, and I fear that I would just be searching for unnecessary adjectives trying to heap all of my praise upon it.

The script is structured well to show some main characters, to underline relevant moments, and to move between the fighting and the politics (Daniel Brühl playing the main character trying to negotiate peace with the French, realising that the German death toll makes the ongoing situation unsustainable). The camerawork and effects throughout are astonishing, putting viewers in the midst of the action without becoming too disorientating, or feeling too focused on the technical trickery of the shots and onscreen content. And the music by Volker Bertelmann . . . well, it's very possibly my favourite movie score from the past few years. Stunning stuff.

Kammerer is a great lead, especially for the jarring effect of his youthful appearance juxtaposed against what is being asked of him, but nobody in the cast does a bad job. I'll namecheck Albrecht Shuch, Aaron Hilmer, Moritz Klaus, Adrian Grünewald, Edin Hasanovic, and Brühl, but an effective depiction of wartime needs hundreds of people to show the soldiers being fed through the war machine, and this has a very lengthy cast list that I wish I could just copy and paste here. 

War is hell. War is madness. War is used as the solution to problems that don't exist before madmen create them. And it's worrying that so many people keep forgetting the lessons that are right there in our history, not even ancient history. So it looks as if war is a mistake we are doomed to repeat for a long time to come, or until someone does the unthinkable. Before that happens, and apologies for not ending on a cheerier note, everyone should make time to watch All Quiet On The Western Front. 

10/10

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