(“Tantalizes the Taste Buds”)

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

CHEF is more than just a little movie about food or about the personal redemption of a first-class chef.

As evidence of that, there is even a cookbook, THE OFFICIAL CHEF MOVIE COOKBOOK: RECIPES FROM EL JEFE, available as a free e-book or iPad app, which contains recipes from some of the food prepared in the movie, which was written, directed, and stars Jon Favreau.

Favreau plays Carl Casper, the chef at a trendy Los Angeles restaurant owned by Dustin Hoffman.

Carl also has a complicated personal life, because he is divorced from Inez, played by Sofia Vergara, and they have a son, Percy, who would love to spend more time with his father, but Carl is consumed by his occupation as a chef.

In fact, Carl says, “I get to touch people’s lives with what I do, and I love it.”

At the beginning of the movie, a famous food critic shows up at the restaurant, and whereas Carl wants to prepare something special for the critic, who has reviewed Carl before, Carl’s boss doesn’t want him to change the menu, but just stick to “playing his hits.”

Sure enough, the critic writes a bad review, so bad that it goes viral on the Internet, and after Carl gets Percy to sign him up with a Twitter account, Carl just makes matters worse, and a second chance to redeem himself makes everything so worse that Carl loses his job when things escalate to the boss level.

Then when Inez gets a temporary job in Miami, where both she and Carl are from, Carl agrees to go along and watch Percy while Inez works.

Inez also has an ex-husband there, Marvin, played by Robert Downey, Jr., to whom she was married before Carl, and through a series of circumstances, Carl ends up buying a beat-up food truck from Marvin, and he and Percy refurbish it to make it operational again, along with the help of Martin, played by John Leguizamo, who was Carl’s sous-chef and best friend back in L.A. and who shows up unexpectedly to help Carl in his new career.

Then we follow Carl, Percy, and Martin as they drive back to Los Angeles for an unexpected twist at the end.

CHEF is much more than what meets the eye or tantalizes the taste buds.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”