By

Boiling Point

Keeping the plates spinning

It’s Christmas Eve, the busiest night of the year at a high-end London restaurant. There’s a group of demanding morons at one table, a food critic with lethal nut allergies at another, accompanied by the guy (Jason Flemyng) who loaned Andy the cash to open the place. 

The frazzled kitchen staff is at each other’s throats amid the relentless pressure, fueled by a surprise visit from an unsympathetic health inspector. The charismatic owner/chef (Stephen Graham – Greyhound, The Irishman) cajoles and berates to deal with all these crises,  even as more emerge.

My compliments to the cinematographer. It’s seemingly shot in one long take, like the recent 1917. This may to some seem like cinematic gimmickry, but to anyone who has ever worked in a restaurant (most of us, I’d imagine, at one time or another), no technique could better convey the nonstop, twenty-ring circus that a busy eatery can be. (92 min)