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Movie Review | 'Soul Kitchen'

One Restaurant’s History, Spiked Desserts and All

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By Stephen Holden

• Aug. 19, 2010

Spaghetti, spinach and French fries, all smothered in cream sauce: the menu at Soul Kitchen, a decrepit restaurant in a converted warehouse in an industrial section of Hamburg, Germany, may not be to everyone’s palate. But the place attracts a scraggly following of regulars who exit in a huff after its manager, Zinos Kazantsakis (Adam Bousdoukos), hires Shayn (Birol Ünel), a snooty culinary prima donna, as its new chef.

When Shayn scraps the menu to serve dishes with names like Acupuncture Master’s Soup, the place empties. Recently fired from his job at a more upscale restaurant after refusing to honor a customer’s order for hot gazpacho, Shayn is not above spiking desserts with an aphrodisiac made from Honduran tree bark.

The scene in Fatih Akin’s sweet slapstick farce, “Soul Kitchen” (named after the restaurant), in which the patrons go orgiastically berserk while under the bark’s influence, isn’t laugh-out-loud-funny so much as warmly amusing . We’ve seen it before, just as we’ve also seen the mishap at a funeral when, to the mourners’ shock and chagrin, a coffin is dropped, rather than lowered into the ground, and the corpse’s legs are exposed.

What gives these hoary gags some screwball vitality is the skill with which Mr. Akin piles them on willy-nilly in a swiftly edited comedy that never loses its exuberance. This Turkish-German director, who wrote the screenplay with Mr. Bousdoukos, likes all his characters, no matter how eccentric or disreputable. Besides Zinos, who exudes an unquenchable lust for life, they include his crooked brother Illias (Moritz Bleibtreu), a habitual burglar and gambler on “partial parole” from jail, whom Zinos, against his better judgment, hires at the restaurant; and Zinos’s hard-drinking, chain-smoking waitress, Lucia (Anna Bederke), a squatter in the warehouse, who falls in love with Illias.

Other major characters include Zinos’s friend from grade school, Thomas Neumann (Wotan Wilke Möhring), a crafty real-estate wheeler-dealer who wants to buy Soul Kitchen; and Zinos’s rich, sexy girlfriend, Nadine (Pheline Roggan), who leaves Hamburg for a job in Shanghai. While separated, the two carry on steamy communications via Skype.

Early in the movie, Zinos injures his back as he tries to move a dishwasher. For the rest of the film he hobbles about in varying degrees of comic agony. He eventually ends up in the office of a Turkish “physio-healer” known as Kemal the Bone Cruncher, whose treatment for a herniated disc is a crude variation of a medieval torture rack.

“Soul Kitchen” is really a comic history of the restaurant, which before the film ends changes hands more than once, undergoes multiple renovations and at different moments is a punk-rock club and a soul-music dance club. It is also the story of an embattled fraternal relationship (both Kazantsakis brothers resemble Ringo Starr) whose bond survives Illias’s betrayals.

Its insistent zaniness makes “Soul Kitchen” very different in spirit from Mr. Akin’s two previous films, “Head-On” and “The Edge of Heaven,” which established him as a major European filmmaker . Seriously silly, it evokes the same high-spirited, pan-European multiculturalism in which people of all ages and backgrounds blithely traverse national borders as they aggressively pursue their destinies.

Europe in Mr. Akin’s films, whose stories often hinge on unlikely coincidences and plot contrivances, is a teeming potpourri of oddballs and hustlers. At the moment Zinos finally bestirs himself to fly to Shanghai to be with Nadine, he unexpectedly runs into her at the airport as she is returning from China.

Mr. Akin’s vision of interconnectedness in the global village, while similar to that of a movie like “Babel,” is more casual and lighthearted. You don’t feel pressured to ponder the deeper meaning of the geopolitical puzzle; it’s just a fact of modern life.

SOUL KITCHEN

Opens on Friday in Manhattan.

Directed by Fatih Akin; written by Mr. Akin and Adam Bousdoukos; director of photography, Rainer Klausmann; edited by Andrew Bird; production designer, Tamo Kunz; costumes by Katrin Aschendorf; produced by Ann-Kristin Homann, Mr. Akin and Klaus Maeck; released by IFC Films. In German and Greek, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes. This film is not rated.

WITH: Adam Bousdoukos (Zinos Kazantsakis), Moritz Bleibtreu (Illias Kazantsakis), Birol Ünel (Shayn Weiss), Anna Bederke (Lucia Faust), Pheline Roggan (Nadine Krüger), Lucas Gregorowicz (Lutz) and Wotan Wilke Möhring (Thomas Neumann).

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A german 'soul kitchen' that's more than a restaurant.

Bilal Qureshi

Director Fatih Akin's latest movie is a comedy set in the gritty, multicultural Hamburg of his youth. IFC Films hide caption

Director Fatih Akin's latest movie is a comedy set in the gritty, multicultural Hamburg of his youth.

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'Food For The Soul'

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German filmmaker Fatih Akin is one of the stars of European cinema. His gritty dramas about Turkish immigrants in Germany have earned him accolades at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as an Oscar nomination.

But from the very first beats of his latest film, Soul Kitchen , you know you're not in for an evening of European art-house fare.

The film opens as chef Zinos throws frozen fish and chips in the deep fryer, jamming to Quincy Jones in his dingy kitchen. A grungy, very hungry crowd waits outside. The camera zooms out to reveal the inside of a warehouse in the industrial quarter of Hamburg.

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Movie reviews, review: 'soul kitchen,' multiculti comfort food served warm.

Soul Kitchen is a comedy built around music. It's also a love song to Fatih Akin's hometown, and a restaurant called the Taverna where he spent much of his 20s.

"It was more than just a restaurant," Akin says. "It was like a home base for the whole neighborhood, so artists were hanging around there -- but, like, artists who never really created something you know."

That restaurant belonged to Akin's best friend, the Greek-German actor Adam Bousdoukos, who stars in Soul Kitchen as Zinos.

"And he was putting like one turntable in it and then a second one," Akin says. "And he asked people to DJ there. I was DJing there."

That nightly routine inspired Akin to work on a story about the imaginary homes we create as young people -- homes that are less about geography and more about friends, strong drinks and, of course, the right mix of music.

"When you're a really good DJ, you see he's able to mix the tracks," Akin says. "You don't realize it as an audience. He's really surfing on the beat, and I was wondering if this is a possible with a picture."

Extension Of Personality

For Akin, that meant creating a film that echoed what he would hear when he went out in Hamburg in the '90s: clubs filled with American black music from two or three decades earlier.

"We came from an American-occupied country -- what Germany was," Akin says. "So we were very influenced by America."

For Akin's crowd -- the children of immigrants and interracial relationships -- soul music always carried an additional layer of meaning.

"When Dyke and the Blazers sing 'We Got More Soul,' when we talk we got more soul," Akin says. "We felt like they speak about us, people with backgrounds. We have more soul than the white Germans have. That was this identification."

Fatih Akin spent more than two years collecting the music for Soul Kitchen and spent almost $300,000 to buy the rights. He then wrote the script based on those songs.

"What I do is, like, I put the vinyl out," Akin says. "I listen to the track and I read the scene I've written, and if it makes sense I keep it."

The result is almost 60 songs onscreen, and a two-disc soundtrack. The set includes tracks by Curtis Mayfield and Donny Hathaway, but also Greek pop songs, German hip-hop and Middle Eastern electronic music.

"It's an extension of personality," Garth Trinidad says. He's a DJ and radio host at the Los Angeles public radio station KCRW, and he says spinning records can also tell a story. "From the past, from way back or from five minutes ago or whatever it might be, there's always the individual aspect of what's going on in somebody's life that serves that purpose."

Soul Kitchen stars Adam Bousdoukos as a Greek restaurant owner, Zinos (left), while Moritz Bleibtreu plays his brother Illias. IFC Films hide caption

The Young Turks

Fatih Akin catapulted to international stardom in 2004 with his film Head-On , about two German-Turks who fall and fail in love. Like the characters in that film, Akin grew up in a Turkish family in Hamburg, negotiating his place as the son of devout Muslim parents and as a young German who loved nightlife.

Akin's films, like his previous drama The Edge of Heaven , pulsate with intensity. They have urgency that comes out of questions about how we define love, identity and home in a globalized world.

But he says he felt critics became obsessed with asking what additional light he could shed on Europe's immigrant problems. So for him, Soul Kitchen was an act of defiance.

"It really was liberation to not be the slave of certain success, to not be the slave of expectations people have," Akin says.

Some have called Soul Kitchen frothy, Fatih Akin-lite. But he says that's exactly the point: to remain true to all of his creative impulses. It's also a tribute to that now-gentrifying corner of Hamburg that set the course for Akin's other films.

"Soul Kitchen will always have an important -- it might not be important like solving the world, but for me it was in so many terms important," he says.

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Soul kitchen — film review.

Filled with boisterous good spirits, Fatih Akim's "Soul Kitchen" tells of a young Greek-German man's attempts to make a success of a funky restaurant despite a series of mishaps.

By Ray Bennett , The Associated Press September 21, 2009 1:01pm

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VENICE, Italy — Filled with boisterous good spirits, Fatih Akim’s “Soul Kitchen” tells of a young Greek-German man’s attempts to make a success of a funky restaurant despite a series of mishaps.

The film won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival and it can expect more rewards on the festival circuit and a welcome from art house audiences everywhere. It’s a delightful change of pace for director and co-writer Akim, whose “Head On” and “The Edge of Heaven” dealt with very serious stuff.

Co-writer Adam Bousdoukos plays energetic and likeable opportunist Zinos Kazantsakis, who runs a popular restaurant called Soul Kitchen in a neglected area of Hamburg. He prepares stodgy fare such as frozen pizza, fish fingers, hamburgers and macaroni and cheese; the service is abrupt and the music is loud but the customers are happy.

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But then a tax collector takes away his sound system in lieu of back taxes, his girlfriend Nadine (Pheline Roggan) jets off to a new job in China, and his no-account brother Illias (Moritz Bleibtreu) is let out of prison on parole.

Intending to join Nadine in Shanghai, Zinos hires new chef Shayn (Birol Unel) after seeing him get fired from a classy restaurant because he refused to serve warm gazpacho.

Shayn, however, is a culinary purist and he declines to serve the dross that is the mainstay of the Soul Kitchen. He promises Zinos that he will make four dishes that his customers will love.

Almost overnight, the place is empty as the regulars flee from Shayn’s cooking and the noise of a raggedy rock band that Zinos has allowed to play in place of his confiscated sound system.

On top of that, Zinos throws his back out while renovating his kitchen to please health inspectors and an old pal-turned-real estate speculator, Neumann (Wotan Wilke Mohring), starts hounding him to sell the property so he can flatten it for development.

The film follows Zinos in his attempts to save his restaurant, solve his back pain, win back his girlfriend and keep his brother out of jail. It’s all done with flair and a great deal of fun. The personable Bousdoukos actually owned a Hamburg restaurant for several years and he is right at home in the lead role.

In a fine ensemble with many well-drawn smaller characters, Bleibtreu (“Run Lola Run”, “The Baader-Meinhof Complex”) as the hapless brother, Unel (“Head On”) as the fussy chef and Bederke, as a waitress, all stand out.

With brisk pacing, sharp ideas and eclectic music, Akim and cinematographer Rainer Klausmann make “Soul Kitchen” a place for audiences to savor.

Venue: Venice International Film Festival Sales: Match Factory Production Company: Corazon International Cast: Adam Bousdoukos, Moritz Bleibtreu, Birol Unel, Anna Bederke Director, writer, producer: Fatih Akim Writer: Adam Bousdoukos Producer: Klaus Maeck Director of photography: Rainer Klausmann Production designer: Tamo Kunz Costume designer: Katrin Aschendorf Editor: Andrew Bird No Rating, 99 mins.

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Movie review: ‘Soul Kitchen’

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“Soul Kitchen” is a lively, easygoing farce filled with high-energy music and amusing complications. It sounds like the least likely film to be written and directed by Fatih Akin. Or does it?

Akin, born in Germany of Turkish parents, is best known for way-serious films such as the devastating “Head-On” and the somber “ The Edge of Heaven.” Though he’d written this film before those two, he admits in a director’s statement that after their success, “I didn’t find ‘Soul Kitchen’ important enough.” He soon changed his mind and, aside from the desire to remind himself “that life is not only about pain and introspection,” it is easy to see why he did.

For though his tone couldn’t be more different, “Soul Kitchen” shares with Akin’s other films a fondness for offbeat characters who live life to the hilt as well as a thematic interest in the way individuals of foreign backgrounds interact with the dominant German culture. What we’re very much enjoying here are Akin’s usual concerns displayed in a fooling-around mode.

The fish out of water this time around is Zinos Kazantsakis, a Greco-German who runs a restaurant in an industrial zone on the outskirts of Hamburg. As played by Adam Bousdoukos, whose restaurant ownership inspired the script he ended up co-writing, Zinos is powered by the juices of life and knows no speed but full speed ahead.

Romance, however, is about to provide a speed bump. Zinos’ upscale girlfriend Nadine (Pheline Roggan) is headed off for a multiyear journalism posting in Shanghai, and he would desperately like to join her. But he can’t bear to leave his restaurant even though the food he makes never manages to rise to the level of indifferent.

Because this is a farce with endless obstacles, the people Zinos meets further complicate his life. He runs into an old childhood friend turned real estate entrepreneur (Wotan Wilke Möhring) as well as a brilliant but temperamental chef named Shayn (“Head-On” star Birol Ünel) who tells everyone who asks — and many people who don’t — that he’s an artist, not a whore.

Adding yet another flavor to the mix is Zinos’ brother Illias (top German actor Moritz Bleibtreu, the star of “Run Lola Run” and “The Baader Meinhof Complex”). Illias is a con man on a prison work-release program who wants a de facto job with no responsibilities that will leave him free for his criminal pursuits.

These characters, and lots more, interact in endless ways both expected and not. “Soul Kitchen” even finds the time and space to take comic pokes at German bureaucracy, from restaurant health inspectors to tax assessment officials.

And when Zinos slips a disc trying to lift a dishwasher by himself, the film’s generous helpings of physical comedy come into play, culminating in a wild scene with a terrifying physical therapist named Kemal the Bone Cruncher, who Akin insists is a real person he has personally patronized.

There is so much going on in “Soul Kitchen” that you’d run out of breath before you could relate it all. That may sound tiring to experience but in fact watching all this plot on screen actually energizes the viewing experience.

Also helping in the energy department is the film’s terrific soundtrack. Music is a major interest of Akin’s (one of his films, “Crossing the Bridge,” is a documentary about the Istanbul music scene), and he’s put artists such as Ruth Brown, Burning Spear, Artie Shaw, the Isley Brothers and Kool & the Gang on the soundtrack, as well as generous helpings of rembetiko and Greek soul music.

There’s no denying that “Soul Kitchen” is a film that delights in contrivance and improbability, but it does so with such a big-hearted sense of fun that it is hard not to be swept away. No matter what style he chooses to work in, Akin is a filmmaker first and foremost, and that makes all the difference.

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Soul Kitchen

Details: 2009, Rest of the world, 99 mins

Direction: Fatih Akin

With: Adam Bousdoukos ,  Anna Bederke ,  Moritz Bleibtreu and Pheline Roggan

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Soul Kitchen

Where to Watch

Adam Bousdoukos (Zinos Kazantsakis) Moritz Bleibtreu (Illias Kazantsakis) Pheline Roggan (Nadine Krüger) Anna Bederke (Lucia Faust) Birol Ünel (Shayn Weiss) Dorka Gryllus (Anna Mondstein) Wotan Wilke Möhring (Thomas Neumann) Lucas Gregorowicz (Lutz) Demir Gökgöl (Sokrates) Cem Akin (Milli)

In Hamburg, German-Greek chef Zinos unknowingly disturbs the peace in his locals-only restaurant by hiring a more talented chef.

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Soul Kitchen: movie review

A German-Greek restaurant owner tries to take the menu upscale in 'Soul Kitchen' and mayhem ensues.

• By Peter Rainer Film critic

August 27, 2010

After the heavy-going angst of Turkish-German director Fatih Akin ’s previous films “Head-On” and “The Edge of Heaven,” “Soul Kitchen” is a pleasant enough piffle. I can’t escape the feeling, however, that, if it had been done in Hollywood, without subtitles, it would be deemed no better than midrange Judd Apatow fare.

It’s about Zinos ( Adam Bousdoukos ), a German-Greek restaurant owner in working-class Hamburg whose life is a series of follies. His girlfriend has decamped to a job in Shanghai , his restaurant is under siege from predatory real estate developers and the health department, his new upscale menu is a flop with his schnitzel-centric clientele, and his jailbird younger brother Ilias ( Moritz Bleibtreu ), who is given power of attorney over the eatery, loses it in a card game.

The humor is broad, the jokes not of the first freshness, and the cast, especially Bousdoukus, is hammy. And, for the record, the upscale menu, which is supposed to be scrumptious, doesn’t look as tasty as the downscale one. Grade: B- (Unrated.)

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German-Turkish director Fatih Akin is a man of many genres, from thriller (“Head-On”) to political drama (“The Edge of Heaven”) to music doc (“Crossing the Bridge”).

Now he tries his hand at comedy in the chaotic “Soul Kitchen.”

It’s all about the bushy-haired Zinos (Adam Bousdoukos) and his efforts to turn his divey Hamburg restaurant into a trendy hot spot.

Obstacles include Zinos’ jailbird brother; a temperamental chef who quit his last job when a customer demanded that his gazpacho be served cold; Zinos’ tall, blond girlfriend, who runs off to Shanghai for work; and a real estate sleaze who sics the health inspectors on the eatery.

There are moments of fun (an aphrodisiac-laced dessert, for example), but generally the humor seems warmed-over. Judging by “Soul Kitchen,” Akin should stick with the serious stuff.

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Soul Kitchen

• 4 out of 5 stars
• Recommended

Time Out says

So much of moviemaking comes out of deliberateness: the rigorously plotted screenplay, the expensive highway explosion, etc. Thus, when a film takes on the improvisatory spirit of whatever as its game plan, it's impossible not to admire it. Soul Kitchen isn't the best effort by Germany's Fatih Akin; that would be his postpunk romance Head-On (2004), which felt Fassbinder-worthy. But his new movie, an occasionally shouty comedy, is easily his most fun: It's about the relaunching of a restaurant---more of a bohemian hangout---along with all the madness that goes into such endeavors. The lofty dining-cum-performance space (which lends us the title) welcomes a knife-flinging diva of a head chef, a wanna-be rocker, a rapacious property developer and even a tax collector, all of whom yield to its high-volume vibe. Bumping well after midnight, the joint becomes an emblem for the liberated film itself.

Akin, who uses throbbing dance music as effectively as Danny Boyle, has a softness for Hamburg's cultural outsiders; he was born to Turkish immigrants and his movies flaunt a post-reunification embrace. The humorously mystified owner of the establishment, thick-maned Zinos (Bousdoukos, also a cowriter), is a Greek-born entrepreneur. (He plays a lot like John Cusack's vinyl-store proprietor in High Fidelity .) After his Skype relationship with a Shanghai-based girlfriend gets difficult, he throws himself into the rehabilitation of his criminal brother, Illias (Bleibtreu), who needs a job to justify his prison day-leaves. Their bond is the heart of the film---even as Zinos is reduced to a bent-over wreck (he throws out his back early on), you feel the character is somehow growing in stature. Give this a shot. --- Joshua Rothkopf

See also Make it funky: Fatih Akin

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Soul kitchen.

Directed by Fatih Akin

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans

In Hamburg, German-Greek chef Zinos unknowingly disturbs the peace in his locals-only restaurant by hiring a more talented chef.

Adam Bousdoukos Birol Ünel Moritz Bleibtreu Anna Bederke Pheline Roggan Dorka Gryllus Wotan Wilke Möhring Lucas Gregorowicz Demir Gökgöl Cem Akin Marc Hosemann Catrin Striebeck Uğur Yücel Udo Kier Monica Bleibtreu Jan Fedder Maria Ketikidou Hendrik von Bültzingslöwen Bernd Gajkowski Herma Koehn Markus Imboden Gustav Peter Wöhler Zarah Jane McKenzie Peter Lohmeyer Philipp Baltus Peter Jordan Till Huster Francesco Fiannaca Simon Görts Show All… Lars Rudolph

Director Director

Producers producers.

Fatih Akin Klaus Maeck Ann-Kristin Homann

Writers Writers

Fatih Akin Adam Bousdoukos

Editor Editor

Andrew Bird

Cinematography Cinematography

Rainer Klausmann

Composers Composers

Klaus Maeck Pia Hoffmann

Corazón International Pyramide Productions NDR Dorje Film

France Germany Italy

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

German Greek (modern)

Releases by Date

Theatrical limited, 31 jan 2010, 09 sep 2009, 10 sep 2009, 17 dec 2009, 05 mar 2010, 17 mar 2010, 19 mar 2010, 22 apr 2010, 13 may 2010, 25 dec 2010, 17 feb 2011, 08 oct 2010, 02 mar 2011, releases by country.

• Theatrical 16
• Theatrical U
• Theatrical 12
• Theatrical K15

Netherlands

• Physical 12 DVD
• Theatrical M/16

South Korea

• Theatrical 18
• Theatrical limited 7 Göteborg International Film Festival
• Theatrical 7
• Physical 11 DVD & Blu-ray release
• Theatrical NR

99 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★★★ 7

Faith Akin’s The Bear , but remove much of the swearing and Safdie-ness of it all. And while I liked that show, I would watch this movie repeatedly over the show. Although, to be honest, at the same time, this movie and that show couldn’t be more different.

The film's core cast, led by co-writer and star Adam Bousdoukos, who drew extensively from his own life for inspiration, is largely responsible for its success, just as they were for the show on Hulu. Perhaps as a result of this, he was able to deliver great work by playing a slightly fictional version of himself. Zinos' drive and passion shine through in his portrayal of a flawed man who may be an…

Review by Ole Holgersen ★★★★ 1

A feel-good film with groove, heart and soul (actually, more like funk) that stays with you for a long time. The characters are colourful, the use of music is perfect and the whole idea of the film is very likable.

With some minor adjustments it could have been a classic. Add a little more focus on the food, music, staff and the running of the restaurant, and drop some of the sub-plots involving crime and cash, and "woila!", you got yourself a little masterpiece!

Flawd, but what the heck! This was undoubtedly a great viewing experience, even though it has it's weaknesses. I was smiling and laughing the whole film through and when it ended I was begging for more. That's obviously a sign of quality in my opinion.

I wish this place existed in real life, I'd practically live there! :)

Review by che demirkubuz ★★★

Deutsche ratatouille

Review by Bhavya ★★★★ 2

Soul Kitchen follows the struggles of a restaurant owner trying to maintain a work-life balance as he encounters a series of misfortunes in the form of health issues, business troubles..etc The director's choice to use a humorous, light-hearted tone leaves the audience entertained and uplifted. This is backed by solid performances and a great soundtrack. The new chef's passion for food is a treat to watch and his scenes easily steal the show. All in all, this movie provided me with the perfect escape to end a bad week🙏🏼

Review by Giorgos Karkaletsis ★★★★½

Soul Kitchen is not just a film about cooking. Of course, cooking looks super delicious, but the whole story is intriguing too and not one-dimensional at all. Performances are decent, it filmed well and the soundtrack is that good too. Didn't expect it, but i really adored it!

Review by Sudhakar Kumar ★★★★

Soul Kitchen isn’t a foodie movie. From its beginning to its end, It is filled with a passionate energy. It is enjoyable because of the strength of each character, which allows the film to flaunt a great vibrancy. The comedy is more amusing than hilarious. It’s fast and airy, and follows a protagonist whose escalating misfortunes are played mostly for laughs.

Review by 12drue 🎞️ ★★★★½ 2

🍝 Community Speisekarte Weekend 🍝 (03.11.2023-05.11.2023) Chefkoch: xMAD_LukEx Wichtigste Speisen: vier unterschiedliche Tagesgerichte, auf keinen Fall in Sahne ertränkt!

Zinos (Adam Bousdoukos) führt mit Leib und Szene sein Restaurant Soul Kitchen in Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg. Das Essen ist schlecht, aber es gibt ein paar Stammgäste, die die Löcher im Magen stopfen wollen. Dennoch reicht das nicht, um alle Schulden und Kredite abzuzahlen und die Auflagen des Gesundheitsamtes zu erfüllen. Dass sein Bruder (Moritz Bleibtreu) gerade tagsüber Freigang aus Santa Fu bekommt, seine Freundin (Pheline Roggan) einen Job in Shanghai bekommen hat und er sich den Rücken verknackst (ohne Krankenversicherung), macht sein Leben auch nicht einfacher. Vielleicht kann der fanatische Koch (Birol Ünel), der Gäste schon einmal mit dem Messer bedroht oder als…

Review by hunkamunka ★★★½ 4

Mystery March Challenge - Week Two

First off, before I get into the proper review, I'd just like to say that it's a testament to how enjoyable this film is, that I could really appreciate it despite the fact that my download had crap English subtitles. For each scene, I literally had to translate the translation.

Anyway, moving on.

Soul Kitchen is just pure, unadulterated, full-fat fun. Despite being a little rushed and disjointed at times, it is packed full of wacky, feel good humor, and is a joy to watch. Zinos (Adam Bousdoukos) is the owner of a run-down restaurant in the middle of an industrial estate in Hamburg. The place is popular with the locals, but fails to…

Review by nissa ★★★½

“1- Barı açıyorum 2-Ayla’yla aramı düzeltiyorum 3-Babamı da yanıma alıyorum Olay bitmiştir.”  but Fatih Akın version

Review by siynem ★★★

kemikkıran kemal kısmında patladım

Review by Krautsalat ★★★★ 1

Udo Kier really is in everything. As he should be.

Review by Missyglotzt ★★★★ 2

Zinos (Adam Bousdoukos) frittiert Fisch und rührt Tütensuppe in kochendes Wasser und die Gäste vom "Soulkitchen" sind zufrieden. Leider kostet ihn sein Laden sehr viel Zeit, weshalb seine Freundin Nadine (Pheline Roggan) genervt ist. Denn er kommt nicht nur zu spät zu ihrer Abschiedsfeier, sondern nach China mitkommen geht auch nicht. Wieso? "Der Laden, Mann!!" Als Ilias (Moritz Bleibtreu), der Bruder von Zinos, am Wochenende Freigang bekommt, wird alles noch komplizierter. Ich mag die alten Filme von Fatih Akin wirklich gern und diese Hommage an Hamburg ist wirklich mit besonders viel Liebe gemacht. Fatih hat für diese Geschichte der beiden Brüder tolle Locations aufgetan und eine schön-schnodderige Atmosphäre geschaffen. Und seine Frau Monique hat bis in die kleinen Nebenrollen hinein wunderbare Schauspieler*innen gecastet. 🍝 Community Speisekarte 🍝 (03.11.2023-05.11.2023)

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'Soul Kitchen' movie review: Kitchen comedy from Germany makes a nice cinematic snack

• Published: Aug. 20, 2010, 11:48 a.m.
• Stephen Whitty | For Inside Jersey

It’s a wonder there aren’t more films about kitchens.

After all, a director is kind of like a chef — inspired, emotional, having to depend on collaborators while maintaining a single vision. And all the sous-chefs, servers and hosts serve as cast and crew.

Still, the last film that got restaurants right? Maybe the original, German “Mostly Martha,” released in 2001. (But definitely not the American remake, “No Reservations,” which followed six years later.)

Yet “Soul Kitchen” — oddly, another German film — gets it right, too, capturing the volume, the passions, the pressure. And, along the way, also serving up some mouth-watering close-ups.

It’s a film from Fatih Akin, a Turkish-German filmmaker who made the grim, starkly sexual “Head-On” in 2004. He followed that with the dreamier, far more insinuating “The Edge of Heaven” in 2007.

Both films used different styles to tell different stories. “Soul Kitchen” explores yet another, as it bounces around to its own beat to detail the interlocking stories of several manic creatures.

Adam Bousdoukos is Zinos, cook, owner and chief debtor at the titular Hamburg restaurant, a run-down enterprise whose two most important pieces of equipment are its music system and its deep fryer.

But then Zinos brings on a new chef, who 86s the fatty food to add more gourmet fare. And Zinos brings on a new manager — who happens to be not only his brother, but a work-release convict with a terrible gambling problem.

Movie Review

Soul Kitchen

(Unrated) IFC (99 min.)

Directed by Fatih Akin. With Adam Bousdoukos, Moritz Bleibtreu. In German with English subtitles. Now playing in New York.

Ratings note: The film contains strong language.

Stephen Whitty's review: THREE STARS

You may suspect this is not going to end well.

It actually does, after a fashion — this is, after all, a comedy. But getting there is a difficult (yet amusing) process, as a variety of villains — tax collectors, real-estate speculators and even Eurotrash icon Udo Kier — all show up to complicate things.

“Soul Kitchen” itself isn’t that complicated. Its soundtrack is a lively mix — mostly R&B songs, drawn from some surprising sources. (Remember the Quincy Jones theme to the original, early ’70s “Bill Cosby Show”? You will.)

And the story is both light and ever-tightening, as Zinos also soon has to deal with an absent girlfriend, a bad back, a mystic Turkish chiropractor and a rare Honduran aphrodisiac.

Bousdoukos — both an actor and chef in real life — is delightful as this Greek transplant. (Akin, understandably, has always been attuned to feelings of strangeness and displacement.) And Moritz Bleibtreu, so good in last year’s “The Baader-Meinhof Complex,” gives a strong performance as his terribly weak brother.

“Soul Kitchen” isn’t, like Akin’s earlier films, a full feast, rich with carefully catered courses of philosophy, cultural conflict and melodrama. It’s really more akin to a light snack. But take a bite. You may find yourself wanting to come back for seconds.

Stephen Whitty: (212) 790-4435 or [email protected]

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Soul Kitchen (2009)

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Soul Kitchen

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Adam Bousdoukos

Zinos Kazantsakis

Moritz Bleibtreu

Illias Kazantsakis

Shayn Weiss

Lukas Gregorowicz

Dorka Gryllus

Anna Mondstein

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Movie news & guides, this movie is featured in the following articles., critics reviews.

Soul Kitchen (Germany, 2009)

The only reason Soul Kitchen is being marketed as an "art film" in the United States is because it is subtitled. On merit, this is as mainstream as one can imagine - a generic, feel-good plot that's fit for a sit-com. Call it My Big Fat Greek Restaurant . Soul Kitchen attempts to compensate for its familiarity and predictability with energy and humor, but a lifeless performance from co-star Moritz Bleibtreu and mixed comedic timing from the entire cast leaves the movie wallowing in a no-man's-land between a weak recommendation and a suggestion to give it a pass.

Soul Kitchen is the story of Zinos Kazantakis (Adam Bousdoukos), the owner and "chef" for a diner called "Soul Kitchen" set in the German city of Hamburg. Zinos' clientele is not picky about the food - deep-fried fish fingers and hamburgers are the most eclectic their tastes run. Zinos' life is at a cross-roads - he must decide whether to continue in his current treadmill existence or find someone to run the diner so he can escape to the Orient to be with his girlfriend, Nadine (Pheline Roggan). His brother, Illias (Moritz Bleibtreu), out of prison on a work release, complicates matters. Illias wants to be "employed" at Soul Kitchen, but on paper only (so he can claim to have a job); he doesn't intend to do any work. Meanwhile, an old school chum, Neumann (Wotan Wilke), is willing to pay good money for the Soul Kitchen property - an offer that looks attractive after Zinos is visited by both tax collectors and health inspectors. But when a serendipitous accident lands a top-level chef, the temperamental Shayn (Birol Unel), in Zinos' establishment, he sees a chance to change his fortunes - if he can find anyone willing to eat the gourmet dishes devised by this culinary genius.

Soul Kitchen is pregnant with sit-com staples: the bad boy (Illias) making good, but only after screwing everything up; the confused guy (Zinos) finding love and a purpose in life; and a seemingly hopeless situation that finishes up all right. The movie is positive and well-meaning, but it's not sufficiently interesting to parlay the good will into something rousing than disposable entertainment. Soul Kitchen is the cinematic equivalent of the meals being served by Zinos at the beginning, but the subtitles might fool some into thinking they're getting one of Shayn's elite concoctions.

Lead actor Adam Bousdoukos, who also co-wrote the screenplay, is adequate for the role, believably essaying a Greek-born German. The same cannot be said of Moritz Bleibtreu (the boyfriend in Run Lola Run ), whose surly demeanor is not well-suited to this sort of comedy. Most of the other performances are fine, although there are no true standouts. Dorka Gryllus, who plays back specialist Anna, deserves more than the token screen time accorded to her, if only because it would build more sensibly to the ending.

Director Fatih Akin's previous feature, The Edge of Heaven , was a potent and compelling motion picture with a thematic depth entirely missing from Soul Kitchen , which has been designed as a lightweight diversion. The film is tiresome not merely because of the familiarity of the material, but because there's little verve surrounding the proceedings. Perhaps the intention was to mimic the success of another German motion picture about food, life, and restaurants, Mostly Martha . But, while the earlier film provided a full multi-course meal, this one never gets beyond the appetizer.

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• Princess Bride, The (1987)
• City Lights (1931)
• This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
• Feast (2006)
• Dumb and Dumberer (2003)
• Freddy Got Fingered (2001)
• (There are no more better movies of Adam Bousdoukos)
• (There are no more worst movies of Adam Bousdoukos)
• Run Lola Run (1999)
• Walker, The (2007)
• (There are no more better movies of Moritz Bleibtreu)
• Fifth Estate, The (2013)
• (There are no more worst movies of Moritz Bleibtreu)
• (There are no more better movies of Birol Unel)
• (There are no more worst movies of Birol Unel)

MPAA Rating

Produced by, released by, soul kitchen (2009), directed by fatih akin.

• AllMovie Rating 8
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Synopsis by Mark Deming

Characteristics, related movies.

Beautiful, interesting, incredible cinema.

SOUL KITCHEN

Owner of a locals-only diner in Hamburg, Zinos is down on his luck. His girlfriend has moved to Shanghai, customers are boycotting the kitchen’s new gourmet menu, and he’s now got back issues. Things improve when a hip crowd embraces his revamped restaurant, but that doesn’t fix Zinos’ broken heart.

A change of pace from flexible director Fatih Akin ( Head On , In the Fade ), this ensemble comedy is a crowd-pleasing, lively look at the frantic and frenzied reality of running a restaurant. Set in Hamburg, Soul Kitchen is another of Akin’s depictions of modern, multicultural Germany.

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors.

Now streaming on:

Pixar's "Soul" is about a jazz pianist who has a near-death experience and gets stuck in the afterlife, contemplating his choices and regretting the existence that he mostly took for granted. Pixar veteran Pete Docter is the credited co-director, alongside playwright and screenwriter Kemp Powers , who wrote Regina King's outstanding "One Night in Miami." Despite its weighty themes, the project has a light touch. A musician might liken "Soul" to an extended riff, or a five-finger exercise, which is very much in the spirit of jazz, an improvisation-centered art that's honorably and accurately depicted onscreen whenever Joe or another musician character starts to perform. 

The prologue peaks with Joe (voiced by Jamie Foxx ) falling into an open manhole and ending up comatose in a hospital. It's a bummer twist ending to a great day in which Joe was finally offered a staff job at his school, then nailed an audition with a visiting jazz legend named Dorothea Williams ( Angela Bassett ) who had invited him to play with her that night. After his near-lethal pratfall, Joe's soul is sent to the Great Beyond—basically a cosmic foyer with a long walkway, where souls line up before heading toward a white light. Joe isn't ready for The End, so he flees in the other direction, falls off the walkway, and ends up in a brightly colored yet still-purgatorial zone known as The Great Before. 

The Great Before is a bit like the setting of Albert Brooks' metaphysical comedy " Defending Your Life ." It has its own rules and procedures, and is part of a larger spiritual ecosystem wherein certain things have to happen for other things to happen. There's a touch of video game structure/plotting to the entire premise, and it's reinforced by the stylized drawing of Great Before characters in supervisory positions over mentors and proto-souls: they're two-dimensional, shape-shifting Cubist figures made of elegant neon lines.

The purpose of the Great Before is to mentor fresh souls so that they can discover a "spark" that will drive them to a happy and productive life down on earth. Joe is motivated mainly by a desire to avoid the white light and get back to earth somehow (and play that amazing gig he'd been waiting his whole life for), so he assumes the identity of an acclaimed Swedish psychologist and mentors a problem blip known only by her number, 22 ( Tina Fey ). Twenty-two is a blasé cynic who has rejected mentorship from some of the greatest figures in mortal history, including Carl Jung and Abraham Lincoln. Can Joe break the streak and help her find her purpose? Have you ever seen a Pixar film before? Of course. It's mainly about how things happen in these films, rarely about what happens. 

That having been said, there's a nifty comic twist about halfway through the film that livens up "Soul" just when it was starting to drag, and it's best not to spoil it here (even though trailers and ads already have). Suffice to say that 22 eventually does find her spark, although it takes a lot of effort and more than a few wild misadventures to get there; and that Joe reexamines his years on earth as a genial but meek teacher and finds them wanting. He didn't make as many friends as he should have and was consumed by fears that he traded his childhood dream of becoming a working jazz artist for a more ordinary life. (Joe's mother, played by Phylicia Rashad , is not supportive of his music.) The downside is that this turns "Soul" into another of a string of animated films (including " The Princess and the Frog " and " Spies in Disguise ") in which a rare Black leading character is transformed into something else for the majority of a film's running time.

Is this the first midlife crisis movie released by Pixar? Possibly, although Woody in the " Toy Story " films seemed to have a touch of that affliction as well. The movie is a bit shaggy and disorganized with its mythology/rules—something that Pixar is usually meticulous about, to the point of being obsessive. I'm not convinced it adds up to all much in the grand scheme by the time the final sequence arrives. The film's message could be summed up as, "Don't get so hung up on ambition that you forget to stop and smell the flowers." A birthday card could've told you that. And some of the jokes are a tad DreamWorksy, like the bit where a lost soul returns to earth and realizes that he's completely wasted his life by working in hedge funds; a ruthless international mega-corporation like Disney— which stuck most of its 20th Century Fox repertory holdings in a "vault" last year  to push people to rent or purchase new Disney product, and that once sued day care centers for putting its characters on murals without permission—has no business lecturing anybody else about the moral emptiness of materialism. 

And yet, " Cars " and its various derivatives aside, Pixar has never released a flat-out bad film. And this is a good one: pleasant and clever, with a generous heart, committed voice acting, and some of the kookiest images in Pixar history (including a ghostly, pink, land-bound pirate vessel belonging to a "mystic without borders," with tie-died sails, a peace symbol anchor, and Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" blasting on a continuous loop). The company has been entrenched at the center of popular culture for decades, its reputation fortified by animated features that blend innovative design and graphics, lively physical and verbal comedy, impeccably staged action, and a sensibility that one of my old college film textbooks called "sprezzatura"—described in Baldassare Castiglione's 1528 The Book of the Courtier  as " ... a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art, and make whatever one does or says seem to be without effort, and almost without any thought about it." In other words, Pixar makes it all look easy, even when hundreds of people worked on the project long enough to justify a "production babies" section of the end credits.

Despite feeling like rather minor Pixar overall, "Soul" will prove to be of historical interest because, despite the transformation issue, and when it isn't getting wrapped up in goofy afterlife shenanigans, it's the most unapologetically Black Pixar project yet released. Its portrayal of jazz is not only accurate in terms of its soundtrack of classic cuts and depiction of performance (the piano and trumpet playing is as correct as anything in Spike Lee's " Mo' Better Blues ") but also its wider cultural context. 

In a flashback, Joe's dad, who introduced him to jazz, describes the music as one of the greatest African-American contributions to world culture. There are many other touches in the film that testify to the story's anchoring in an experience beyond the white, middle-class suburban norms that Pixar embraces by default. There's even a visit to a Black barbershop showcasing an array of male hairstyles; a joke about the difficulty of a Black man hailing a taxi in New York City ("This would be hard even if I wasn't wearing a hospital gown!"); and a reference to Charles Drew, a Black physician credited with pioneering the blood transfusion. This distinction gives weight to lines that might not have registered in a Pixar film with white protagonists, such as 22's quip, "You can't crush a soul here. That's what life on earth is for."

Available on Disney+ on December 25.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Theater Review: Not everyone will be ‘Fallin’ over Alicia Keys’ Broadway musical ‘Hell’s Kitchen’

This image released by Polk & Co shows the artists during a performance of “Hell’s Kitchen” on Broadway. (Marc J. Franklin/ Polk & Co via AP)

This image released by Polk & Co shows the poster of “Hell’s Kitchen” show on Broadway. (Marc J. Franklin/ Polk & Co via AP)

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If you were to close Alicia Keys ’ big semi-autobiographical musical on Broadway with any of her hit songs, which would it be? Of course, it has to be “Empire State of Mind.” That’s the natural one, right? It’s also as predictable as the R train being delayed with signal problems.

“Hell’s Kitchen,” the coming-of-age musical about a 17-year-old piano prodigy named Ali, has wonderful new and old tunes by the 16-time Grammy Award winner and a talented cast, but only a sliver of a very safe story that tries to seem more consequential than it is.

It wants to be authentic and gritty — a remarkable number of swear words are used, including 19 f-bombs — for what ultimately is a portrait of a young, talented woman living on the 42nd floor of a doorman building in Manhattan who relearns to love her protective mom.

The musical that opened Saturday at the Shubert Theatre features reworks of Keys’ best-known hits: “Fallin’,” “No One,” “Girl on Fire,” “If I Ain’t Got You,” as well as several new songs, including the terrific “Kaleidoscope.”

That Keys is a knockout songwriter, there is no doubt. That playwright Kristoffer Diaz is able to make a convincing, relatable rom-com that’s also socially conscious is very much in doubt.

This is, appropriately, a woman-led show, with Maleah Joi Moon completely stunning in the lead role — a jaw-dropping vocalist who is funny, giggly, passionate and strident, a star turn. Shoshana Bean, who plays her single, spiky mom, makes her songs soar, while Kecia Lewis as a soulful piano teacher is the show’s astounding MVP.

When we meet Ali, she’s a frustrated teen who knows there’s more to life and “something’s calling me,” as she sings in the new song, “The River.” At first that’s a boy: the sweet Chris Lee, playing a house painter. There’s also reconnecting with her unreliable dad, a nicely slippery Brandon Victor Dixon. But the thing calling Ali is, of course, the grand piano in her building’s multipurpose room.

Outside this apartment building in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood — we get a clue the time is the early 1990s — are “roaches and the rats/heroin in the cracks.” But no criminality is shown — at worst some illegal krumping? — and the cops don’t actually brutalize those citizens deemed undesirable. They sort of just shoo them away. This is a sanitized New York for the M&M store tourists, despite the lyrics in Keys’ songs.

Another reason the musical fails to fully connect is that a lot of the music played onstage is fake — it’s actually the orchestra tucked into the sides making those piano scales and funky percussion. (Even the three bucket drummers onstage are mostly just pretending, which is a shame.) For a musical about a singular artist and how important music is, this feels a bit like a cheat.

Choreography by Camille A. Brown is muscular and fun using a hip-hop vocabulary, and director Michael Greif masterfully keeps things moving elegantly. But there’s — forgive me — everything but the kitchen sink thrown in here: A supposed-to-be-funny chorus of two mom friends and two Ali friends, a ghost, some mild parental abuse and a weird fixation with dinner.

The way the songs are integrated is inspired, with “Girl on Fire” hysterically interrupted by rap bars, “Fallin’” turned into a humorously seductive ballad and “No One” transformed from an achy love song to a mother-daughter anthem.

But everyone is waiting for that song about “concrete jungles” where “big lights will inspire you.” It comes right after we see a young woman snuggling on a couch, high over the city she will soon conquer. You can, too, if you just go past the doorman and follow your dreams.

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