Well, this movie certainly gives you an appetite. For that, and for many other reasons, it reminds me of Stanley Tucci's `Bight Night', another culinary gem put on the big screen. Not only do both movies show a great deal of food making and food eating but most importantly both do it beautifully. Both stories also happen in one night. But although `Big Night' features a failing Italian restaurant whose owners (two Italian-American brothers) are trying to revive with one special night, `Dinner Rush' transports us to an already successful and very trendy New York eatery (Italian as well, which confirms that Italian food can be a great inspiration for movie making). The food in `Dinner Rush' is more sophisticated (nouvelle cuisine, Italian style) than the traditional cuisine of `Big Night', and so is the movie itself: compared with the simplicity of the cinematography in Stanley Tucci's film, `Dinner Rush' opens with unfocused shots, saturated colors, unsteady camera work. It all looks very contrived at first and you wish for a more demure and simple atmosphere, the same way Louis Cropa (played by Danny Aiello) disapproved of his son's fussy cuisine, asking for something more nourishing, something that simply smells and tastes good. And that's exactly what you could ask from Bob Giraldi, the director of `Dinner Rush'. But once you get inside Cropa's restaurant, you're drawn to the warmth of the place, the rush of the night, the relationships among the staff and the show that some of the patrons put on (Sandra Bernhard is extremely funny as a wig-wearing food critic and the actor who plays the obnoxious art manager is hysterical). You become fond of characters such as Marti the waitress/artist (great performance by Summer Phoenix), Duncan, the sous-chef/chronic gambler, the English barman with whose cultural knowledge the customers bet and loose their money on, but most of all Louis Croppa, alias Gigi, the owner of the restaurants who's thinking of quitting both the restaurant and his bookmaking business. Danny Aiello is an amazing and under-used actor and with this performance he really hits the mark. He's cool, subtle, wise, tough and gentle. It's simply impossible no to succumb to the charm of this unpretentious film and all you want to do when you leave the cinema is fly to New York and have a true Italian dinner experience in lower Manhattan.
Review of Dinner Rush
