This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Soul Kitchen is a puzzle. Everything that happens in the film has a correspondence in the story. Nothing happens just for the sake of it, even though some pieces do not fit in the big picture, they are still there to serve the full purpose of the film, and this makes overall image of Soul Kitchen positive. It is a story of a man who is in love with his restaurant. He is in the center of the film and everything else happens around him. His name is Zinos (Adam Bousdoukos) and he owns a restaurant which is completely made by him. He has a brother in jail for robbery who can go outside during the day if he has a place to work. Zinos is in love with Nadine (Pheline Roggan) and Nadine goes to Shanghai with her work as a journalist and Zinos plans to rent his restaurant and move to Shanghai with his girlfriend but funny and tragicomic events don't leave him alone. Every event and person is related to Zinos. This is the reason why I said he is in the center of the film. Soul kitchen is based on his own experiences as the restaurant owner of a Greek Taverna. The director of the film Fatih Akin was a regular customer in that restaurant and this is how Soul Kitchen is born. This story is even more interesting than the film itself.Soul Kitchen is a typical festival film with its atmosphere and story. It is not carrying a message and it doesn't try to give you anything. As I said, it is the story of a guy who is in love with his restaurant. Soul Kitchen is the rise and fall and rebirth of the restaurant with the same name. It has food, alcohol, music, dance and sex in it. It has good people and bad people in it. In the story point of view, it is not perfect and it has a lot of flaws. Zinos' brother is a thief because sometime during the film they will need to steal something, Nadine's grandmother dies and leaves a lot of money to Nadine because in the end of the film, Zinos will need a lot of money to get his restaurant back. He is having a back injury because he is supposed to fall in love with the therapist. The chief of a restaurant loses his job while Zinos is around, because he is supposed to come and work for Zinos. These pieces are needed in the story to make it a whole. This is the beauty of Soul Kitchen. A piece of random information is used during the film to combine something or to make a point. Soul Kitchen is a bad restaurant with good music. Zinos' restaurant is sued by the authorities of all kinds, and Fatih Akin takes these incidences and uses them to show the corruption of the system as well. Soul Kitchen is not intended to be a comedy, but everything that is happening in the film is comedy. Watching Soul Kitchen is like watching life. You don't force anything to happen, they just happen. These are sometimes good, sometimes bad. They are not exaggerated, that's why you get to think that Soul Kitchen is the life itself. The only difference from the real life is some puzzle pieces are re-shaped to fit in the story. This might be the only bad thing about the film. The film has a large cast of European actors, but there is not even one performance worth mentioning. Everything is simple and natural. That's why I said above that watching Soul Kitchen is like watching the life itself.There is not much to talk about the film. It is not made for any purpose. Fatih Akin and Adam Bousdoukos' longtime friendship is the only reason of this production. It is like a friend of yours takes a camera in his hand and records your daily life and makes a film out of those shots. Fatih Akin, as a director, is much better than that, but this doesn't apply for Soul Kitchen. In my opinion Soul Kitchen is made purely for fun. This film is a great memory of this friendship. If you want to judge Fatih Akin as a director you should watch, Head On or The Edge of Heaven or In July. Fatih Akin is a talented director, just don't judge him if Soul Kitchen is the first and the only film you have seen made by him. There are two good points of the film. One is the music, and second is the natural flow of the story. Soul Kitchen is completely in German language and has a runtime of 99 minutes. Every character has their own flaws and this makes the film natural. Released on 2009, Soul Kitchen has even received a special prize in Venice Film Festival.

Greek-German Zinos Kazantsakis operates the rundown working-class Wilhelmsburg restaurant Soul Kitchen. He has money struggles. Sokrates works on his boat in the adjacent storage but never seems to pay Zinos rent. During a family dinner at a high-class restaurant, he sees arrogant chef Shayn getting fired and hires him on the spot. His girlfriend Nadine leaves for China and later he decides to go to her. His convict brother Illias gets leave from prison and convinces Zinos to sign off on work release. Zinos hurts his back trying to move in a replacement dishwasher. With no health insurance, he gets help from physical therapist Anna. Tax collectors confiscate his sound system. Shayn changes the menu driving away the regulars. Former classmate and sleazy developer Thomas Neumann wants to buy the restaurant and secretly calls in the health department. New customers love the food and soon it becomes a gastronomical success. Waitress Lucia hates Illias until she finds out that he's a bad boy criminal. He's a degenerate gambler but Zinos gives him power of attorney.The story is a bit rambling with a lot of turns. It's got a jazzy rocking feel. It works well enough. It's got its fun. The jam-packed story may work even better as a TV show. As for the food porn aspect, the most memorable scene is Shayn taking apart fish sticks and french fries to create a high-class plate.

It's been very nice watching something less Hollywood style, and yet rooted in soul music, but not only that - the whole plot is very interesting to follow in particular when it comes to relations among the characters. Really enjoyed this movie even if it comes in German language. In in this time of recession and global crisis the movies as well develops the plot about private property which becomes very important and therefore worth protecting. At certain point I was not sure if the owner of Soul Kitchen will be able to get it back as his situation was more than difficult, but there was such a twist at the end and it all ended just fine (glad for that)..Last but not least, I would most definitely recommend this movie to everyone interested in music and arts in general.

Likable and fast-moving feel-good tragicomedy which sometimes veers closely toward those annoyingly busy and loud German comedies with their succession of silly and overcooked set-pieces, based on all too well-known clichés.The predictable plot surely breaks no new ground and strains credulity from time to time, but at least it's all in good spirit. The actors find the right balance between comedy stereotyping and character drama and the soundtrack and location work are especially fine.Just like all of Akin's "lighter" pics, this one's easy to digest but doesn't call for a second course.6 out of 10 knife throwing chefs