When successful chef Rob Haley's wife dies he goes into decline. Taking ownership of a country pub he strives to reclaim his reputation and maybe find love in the shape of Kate Templeton, who just happens to be a food critic.
Cinema going doesn't get tougher than this; Love's Kitchen is the infamous movie that took £121 on its opening weekend. Most ticket buyers must have asked for their money back, or maybe they just left the cinema in stupefied silence? This shameful addition to British cinema really is as terrible as word of mouth suggests, a shockingly inept romcom that fails on every possible level. For starters Dougray Scott and real life partner Claire Forlani lack any charisma in the lead roles, and the secret of chef Haley's culinary success is laughable, resembling a children's dessert.
But the problems with James Hacking's debut feature are too numerous to cite, although the supporting cast deserve special mention not least Simon Callow's hammy performance as a boozy TV food guru. Before audiences are made to suffer that Gordon Ramsay turns up in the most embarrassing cameo in movie history. Ramsay cannot even play himself convincingly and, rather than take the opportunity to see him in full expletive filled rant mode, he's used as a benevolent wake up call to Haley who greets him with the excruciating line "your empire is really just a-mazing".
The pressurised world of the restaurateur certainly provides ample dramatic potential for successful big screen entertainment. But Love's Kitchen appears to deliberately avoid any interesting plotlines in favour of dire predictability artlessly realised, even the food looks awful. A horrible film without any merit at best it resembles a rejected Richard Curtis script translated into Estonian, then back into English by someone who can't speak the language. This is less a review more a warning, forget the infamy surrounding the likes of The Human Centipede II, Love's Kitchen is without doubt the most shocking film of recent times. A hideous experience, the cinematic equivalent of food poisoning.
