thomas4cinema

Fatih Akin is one of the current stars of German cinema. A generation or two after Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders, growing up in a completely different Germany that is characterised by immigration and re-unification. He brings social drama, cultural conflict and the coolness  of young generation to the table. He is willing to be excessively dramatic (Gegen die Wand / Head On), casually global (Auf der anderen Seite / The Edge of Heaven) or just silly (“Solino”). Soul Kitchen is mostly the latter, with dude-like characters populating a junk food restaurant in Hamburg, Turkish bone-breakers repairing Greek spines, a psycopathic maniac with a heart of something like gold ruling over the kitchen, and a truckload of cliches about real-estate developers and health administration officers pushing the story. Very entertaining for what it is, and especially some nice acting on part of the main characters (Adam Bousdoukos as Zinos Kazantsakis, Birol Ünel as Shayn Weiss, and Moritz Bleibtreu as Illias Kazantsakis).
Soul Kitchen Movie Reviews, Pictures – Rotten Tomatoes.