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Restaurant - Eric Bross, Adrien Brody, Elise Neal, Malcolm-Jamal Warner

Threat advisory: Guarded - General risk of entertaining activities

Movie propaganda

Restaurant spins the tale of a group of young friends struggling to keep their dreams alive in Hoboken, New Jersey USA. The stories of these twenty-somethings intersect at JT McClure's, an upscale bar and grill where most of them make a living while chasing their ambitions on their days off.

Beneath the sleek exterior of the restaurant, the bartender, an anguished playwright (Adrien Brody as Chris Calloway), attempts to heal his real-life conflict on stage, while his co-workers - and rivals - sort out their desires and battle self-doubts. As their lives entwine, passions arise, tempers spark and searing questions about race, lust and friendship haunt each of them, black and white. An unflinching look at interracial romance today, Restaurant serves up a varied menu of humour and drama, along with a soul-satisfying, hip hop soundtrack.

Persons of interest

Adrien Brody .... Chris Calloway
Elise Neal .... Jeanine
David Moscow .... Reggae
Simon Baker .... Kenny
Catherine Kellner .... Nancy
Malcolm-Jamal Warner .... Steven
John Carroll Lynch .... John English
Jesse L Martin .... Quincy
Sybil Temtchine .... Lenore
Vonte Sweet .... Marcus
Michael Stoyanov .... Ethan
Elon Gold .... Kurt
Lori Heuring .... Donna
Lauryn Hill .... Leslie
Avery Waddell .... Al-Tarique
Tom Cudworth .... Screenwriter
Eric Bross .... Director

Cinematic intelligence sources

See also Waiting

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Theatrical report

Melrose Place bar and grill.

And that pretty much sums it up. Someone with too much money and not enough style thought that this story was a go film for the 90s with sex, violence, drugs, relationships and mixed-up people that everyone would like to see. Unfortunately it never rises above night time soap and never achieves the camp status that made Melrose Place so popular (for a while).

Everything from the pace to the performances is downplayed to give Restaurant a sense of gritty realism rather than camp enthusiasm but that backfires as everyone ends up walking around in a valium-hazed stupor. No-one has the intensity that life, let alone life in New York, requires. They are bland people in a bland land. That doesn't make for fun viewing.

It's almost impossible to reconcile Adrien Brody's performance in this film with his gung-ho rush as the bisexual Brit punk wannabe in Summer of Sam. Chris is a thin, pasty, wishy washy cardboard cut out that any university student could portray.

*Sighs*

This film just doesn't do it for me, even though it did take up a brain dead couple of hours while coming down after Mardi Gras. Unless you're in the same state, feel free to give it a miss.