Adam Bousdoukos & Moritz Bleibtreu in the movie Soul Kitchen

The funky, enjoyable Hamburg-set comedy "Soul Kitchen" is a celebration of co-writer-director Fatih Akin's home base, a spacious, moody city of apparently limitless industrial warehouse space -- like Chicago -- just made for artists and craftspeople and a little creative repurposing, before better economic times bring in the gentrification.

This marks a change of pace for Akin, whose previous picture, "The Edge of Heaven," was an elaborately structured and very grim portrait of cultural dislocation in the New Europe. "Soul Kitchen," Akin says in the production notes, "was supposed to be a finger exercise, something to remind me that life is not only about pain and introspection." While the comic pitch sometimes feels like the work of a serious man trying to cut loose, around the film's midpoint I gave in. This was right around the time the glum protagonist perks up and is put through a zesty training montage in his restaurant's kitchen by a fearsomely talented new chef, the sort of elitist who screams "uncultured peasants!" whenever he hears a request for schnitzel.

The restaurant of the title is owned by Zinos (played by co-writer Adam Bousdoukos), who's behind on his taxes and dealing with his burglar brother (Moritz Bleibtreu), newly sprung from prison. Zinos is weary of serving up fried this and fried that to his lumpen-prole customers. Then, the winds of change blow, and into his joint comes a new chef (Birol Unel). Like the Tony Shaloub character in "Big Night" or Remy in "Ratatouille," this man has standards to uphold. (Foodies will love this film.) Soon the old crowd fades and a newer, hipper, better-looking crowd arrives.

Akin lays out a big spread of supporting characters. With Zinos' lover (Pheline Roggan) off in China, and Zinos kind-of-sort-of planning to join her, other women take the foreground, including the wonderfully jaded waitress Lucia (Anna Bederke), and a bewitching physical therapist (Dorka Gryllus), aiding Zinos' bad back. There is an orgy, brought on by the use of allegedly magical Ecuadoran tree bark in a dessert topping. Filming all over Hamburg and suburban Wilhelmsburg, with hand-held but nicely controlled and gliding camerawork, Akin explores the nightclubs and techno-raves and loft spaces of the city.

Some of the contrivances are pushy and, well, contrived. But "Soul Kitchen," which features a soundtrack laden with American soul and R&B standards, was a hit in Europe, and I suspect many American moviegoers will respond to it as well.

 

MPAA rating: NR (for language).

Running time: 1:39.

Featuring: Adam Bousdoukos (Zinos); Moritz Bleibtreu (Illias); Birol Unel (Shayn); Anna Bederke (Lucia); Pheline Roggan (Nadine); Wotan Wilke Mohring (Thomas); Dorka Gryllus (Anna); Demir Gokgol (Sokrates).

Credits: Directed by Fatih Akin; written by Akin and Adam Bousdoukos; produced by Ann-Kristin Homann. An IFC Films release.

Soul Kitchen Movie Review - Adam Bousdoukos & Moritz Bleibtreu