What a waste of my time!!!

Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Just perfect...

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

I wanted to and expected to enjoy this but its basically Britain's equivalent to a Lifetime movie with an absolutely unimaginative story, flat romance, bland characters and filled with every romantic comedy movie cliché going.I was actually surprised by how, well not bad exactly -because the acting and production is fine but just unoriginal this was. I did enjoy the leads (Dougray Scott & Claire Forlani) but their romance was still pretty uninspiring. Scott plays a successful chef and restaurateur in London who loses his zest for cooking after his wife dies in a car accident. With encouragement from friends (including a cameo from Gordon Ramsey) he buys a country pub and turns it into a gourmet restaurant. Forlani is a food critique and his mousse catches her eye. 6/28/14

As I have learnt from the multitude of reality TV cooking shows which make regular appearances in the Malone household, the secret to a good dish is carefully selecting fresh ingredients and balancing the different flavors together in order for them to all work in harmony on the plate. However in Love's Kitchen they do things in a different way. Essentially chucking a bunch of old, out of date and re-heated ideas into the mixing bowl, bunging it in the oven and after 90 mins they have produced an under-cooked, half-baked idea of film, devoid of any real flavour or substance.Love's Kitchen tells the lukewarm tale of successful chef and restaurateur Rob Haley (Dougray Scott) who looses all passion for food after the tragic death of his wife in a car accident. A scathing review of his restaurant leads to a cringe worthy intervention by Gordon Ramsey, before our Rob heads off to the countryside and buys The Boot, an old country pub which his late wife fell in love with before her untimely demise and is now frequented by an American food critic (Claire Forlani). Here Rob proceeds to try and recapture his love for food and turn around both the culinary and fiscal fortunes of The Boot. So it appears as if Love's Kitchen is essentially a 90 minute episode of Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, which just in case you were wondering, that's not a good thing.Most rom-coms are predictable, so much so that you can sketch out the plot within the first 5 mins or so of meeting the characters. Why some work and others don't is how much the audience grows to like and invest in the two leads. I am big rom-com fan and a huge admirer of a happy ending. I don't mind it being telegraphed, but I want to enjoy the journey. I need to want the couple to be together at the end of the film. Within 5 mins of watching Love's Kitchen I wanted to take a spatula and start slapping people around the face.Everything about the film felt forced. It felt as if they had studied what had worked in Four Weddings or Notting Hill and tried to recreate it piece by piece. Bringing together a British chap and an American lass has always worked well in the past, but this time the main leads are simply unconvincing with precious little chemistry together. They didn't seem suited to each other at all, so you just didn't care what happens to them.The supporting cast fared little better and appeared to be the dregs of out of work British soap opera actors. Eastenders was well represented and I almost fell of my chair when Nigel from Brookside turned up. I am sure if I had looked hard enough I probably would have found an extra from Crossroads somewhere in the background. There were moments when I couldn't believe what I was watching and hearing. The script sounded like it had come from a Carry On film and some of the characters felt like a cross between caricatures of English country folk and characters from Viz (get ooorffff my land!!) . At times I felt embarrassed for the cast, but mostly I just wanted it to stop.First time writer/director James Hacking did learn one good thing from Four Weddings though and that was Simon Callow. He is star of this film and simply delightful as a boozed up food critic, quite reminiscent of Keith Floyd. I could have happily have watched a film just about him.Apparently when then film opened to a small select 5 screens, it only took 121 GBP in its opening weekend, making it one of the lowest UK openings of all time. You can see why.

We watched this on Netflix streaming movies. Filmed in England, Forlani plays an American character of British parents.Dougray Scott (villian in M.I. 2) is chef Rob Haley with a thriving business in London. Very early in the movie his wife, who has a habit of driving too fast while on the cell phone, dies in a crash. Rob loses his will to be an excellent chef, and his restaurant gets a very negative review.Three years after his wife's death he re-looks at a pub for sale in the countryside. Along with his young daughter gets re-vitalized and buys the place, fixes it up to be his new restaurant.Claire Forlani as Kate Templeton happens to be a restaurant critic. In fact Rob eventually finds out it was she who wrote that negative review. But in the grand scheme of things it helped him realize he had to do better.The road towards romance is predictably rocky, and not all situations and dialog make good sense, but overall it is an enjoyable, entertaining movie. But a very light weight one.I never liked the loud, angry Gordon Ramsay on his TV show, but here he makes a small cameo as Himself to provide some comic relief. Most of the comic relief is provided by Simon Callow who is a food critic that has a penchant for drinking way too much before he ever samples the food and the live taped shows suffer for it. Until his producer finds a novel solution in the form of a bodyguard who monitors his intake of liquids!

No it's not perfect, but something Love's Kitchen has that so many movies don't have these days is heart... and a superb performance on the part of Simon Callow, who alone is worth seeing the film for. I was thinking about his character for days afterward, chuckling.When you consider all the things Love's Kitchen (formerly -- and I believe, superiorly titled No Ordinary Trifle), had working against it (namely the budget -- 'twas A LOT to accomplish for a mere $1M), naysayers should really cut first time writer/director Mr. Hacking some slack. It's a sweet little movie which epicureans in particular will find themselves salivating over on occasion. I will say it's odd to me that there wasn't more chemistry between the leads (they're married I believe), but individually I liked each of them fine (Dougray Scott more than Claire Forlani, but admittedly, I am a heterosexual female) and had no trouble swallowing that these two beautiful people might fall for each other -- though I'd have liked to have seen a bit more of that process so that it felt more organic/less contrived (which is not a unique problem in the genre).In any case, anyone who has a soft spot for feel good romantic comedies will certainly enjoy Love's Kitchen. For my money, it's a FAR CRY above the 27 Dresses type schlock that Hollywood turns out in this arena time and time again. For that alone, I give everyone involved a lot of credit! And lastly -- why does everyone hate on Gordon Ramsay? It's a cameo part perfect for a famous chef at the top of his game which any new director would be a fool not to seize upon!