Rating: 
Country: USA
Release Date: February 12, 2008
Distributor: Warner Home Video
Director:
· Scott Hicks
Cast:
· Catherine Zeta-Jones
· Aaron Eckhart
· Abigail Breslin
Related Sites:
· IMDb: No Reservations
Grade: B
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DVD Review: No Reservations
by R.J. Carter
Published: February 22, 2008
Catherine Zeta-Jones doesn't so much sizzle as she does lightly smolder in her role as a high profile chef with anger management issues. Kate the chef is a perfectionist who can't even serve reheated fishsticks without arranging them neatly on the plate with a slice of lemon and a garnish.
When Kate's sister is killed in an automobile accident, Kate becomes the caretaker for her niece Zoe (Abigail Breslin); and while she takes some forced time off to deal with her family tragedy, the restaurant brings in a new sous chef, Nick (Aaron Eckhart), a bright spirit who is everything that Kate is not.
Everything from their first meeting forward is fairly formulaic. Girl meets boy, girl can't stand boy, girl and boy eventually are drawn romantically to each other until a silly misunderstanding creates an angry rift, and girl reconciles with boy in the end. It's your typical romantic drama as filtered through the Food Network.
Cold Confrontation. Sparks fly in the freezer when Nick is
called in to a meeting with his boss.
(L-R: Eckhart, Zeta-Jones)
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However, the real reason to watch this film is the sparkling and uncanny performance by Breslin, who is far from her "Little Miss Sunshine" zone here, and yet consistently professional and believable. And it helps that her character is the glue that continues to cement the relationship between Nick and Kate, giving her much more camera time than would be allotted to your average "orphaned kid subplot."
This disc includes one video bonus feature -- a twenty-one minute segment of Food Network's series, Unwrapped, hosted by Marc Summers. Here, Summers takes the viewers behind the scenes of "No Reservations," including not only interview comments with Zeta-Jones, Eckhart and Breslin, but also the real chefs who trained them to look good working in the kitchen.
Audio can be set to English, French or Spanish, with optional subtitling in all three languages. Both widescreen and full screen versions are included on the same single-sided disc.
Previews on this disc include Seinfeld Season Nine, and "Fool's Gold."
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