WALKING THE TALK (TONY)

 

TONY

If you were to ask me to name my ten favourite books, one of the first I'd mention is Anthony Bourdain's memoir 'Kitchen Confidential'.

I first read it while holidaying in southern Spain in 2003 and was immediately seduced by its passion, its vivacity, its directness and especially by Bourdain's Hemingway style prose.

The book read like a Martin Scorsese movie waiting to be made.

Instead, it was optioned by Fox as a single camera sitcom with Bradley Cooper and Frank Langella in 2005 that spectacularly crashed and burned when it was axed after four episodes.

Despite this, the book's influence has lingered.

Its DNA can be detected in John Wells' ropey movie 'Burnt,' in the excellent Hulu and Disney+ culinary drama 'The Bear' and the equally impressive big and small screen versions of its British equivalent 'Boiling Point'.

Now Matt Johnson has taken the first two chapters of 'Kitchen Confidential' and turned them into a movie.

The result 'Tony' is a coming of age movie about a young man with the gift of the gab but no sense of direction in terms of his life.

Dominic Sessa of 'The Holdovers' fame is cast as the late teenage Bourdain who has dreams of becoming a writer while studying at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie.

Aged 19, he applies for a writing scholarship and tells his family and a girl he's trying to impress, Emilia Jones' Nancy Putkowski that he's secured it.

Not immediately swayed by his confidence and cockiness, Nancy reveals she is heading to Provincetown in Massachusetts for the summer.

When he doesn't land the scholarship, Tony is upset and on an impulse decides to leave his family home, nick some cash from his father's wallet and head to Cape Cod.

Arriving in Provincetown with nowhere to stay, he focuses on tracking down Nancy in the hope of impressing and seducing her.

However when he finds her in the pizzeria where she works, he discovers she already has a boyfriend, Joe Burns' pizza delivery man who works there.

Gutted, Tony goes to a restaurant, The Flagship for oysters and beer and gets hammered.

However he is thrown out onto the street for being creepy and rude to Monica Raymund's waitress Mary and winds up lying on the street outside in a drunken haze after being roughed up and having the remainder of his cash stolen by one of the staff, Leo Goodall's Sal.

Closing up the restaurant, Antonio Banderas' owner Chef Jose Vatel takes pity on him and gives him a hammock for the night when he realises Tony has nowhere to stay.

Intending to leave Provincetown, Tony runs into Nancy and pretends he is staying on the Cape as part of some research for his writing scholarship.

Returning to Jose's door, he begs the chef to let him stay at his place fir a few days but the catch is he must work in the kitchen as a dishwasher.

In addition to Sal, Jose and Mary, the crew includes Stavros Halkias' loudmouth lobster cooker Stavros, Michael Jibrin's fellow worker Tyrone and he soon becomes charmed by their drug fuelled wit and camaraderie.

Sal, who is really good at shucking oysters, is amused by Tony and takes him under his wing as they party after work.

A womaniser, he likes to carve out bits of wood from the buildings of those he beds which he keeps in a jar at work.

Attending a party that Nancy invites Tony to, Sal later tries to help his lovelorn colleague by engineering a fight in a restaurant with Nancy's boyfriend.

Drinking and consuming cocaine, Tony gets into a lot of scrapes with Sal but also forges a bond with Jose who recognises a raw talent in him and becomes his culinary mentor.

Surrounded by a hard partying crew and still intent on becoming a writer, how can Jose help Tony mature and fulfil his culinary potential?

'Tony' is a decent adaptation of a part of Bourdain's memoir by Johnson and his fellow screenwriters Matthew Miller, Todd Bartels and Lou Howe.

Originally one of 83 promising screenplays named on Hollywood's infamous Black List in 2024, the original draft was by Bartels and Howe, with Johnson and Miller coming on board.

And that may be part of its problem because while the film is entertaining enough, it doesn't have the fizz of Bourdain's writing.

It feels at times a little too designed by committee to the extent that the tone sometimes feels disjointed.

Much of it feels like a languid coming of age tale but then suddenly it jolts in it's kitchen sequences into the kind of intense, rapid fire drama audiences have become used to watching in 'The Bear'.

Despite this flaw, 'Tony' is nevertheless an entertaining enough ride with Sessa perfectly cast as the young Bourdain and proving his engaging performance in 'The Holdovers' was no flash in the pan.

Woodall is very watchable as the rough around the edges cook Sal while Halkias, Jibrin and Raymund amuse as their co-workers.

Jones makes for a decent love interest while Dagmara Dominczyk and Rich Sommer provide sturdy support as Tony's parents.

However it is Banderas who walks away with the most credit - turning in his best ever performance in an English speaking role as Bourdain's devout churchgoing mentor.

Fitting comfortably into the role of the older, wiser mentor, there's a wonderful lived-in quality to his character and also an air of mystery that makes you wonder about his back story and how he wound up running a seafood restaurant in Cape Cod.

As a director, Johnson performs quite well - although fans of Bourdain's book will no doubt wish that he had attacked the story with a bit more energy and panache.

Nevertheless, 'Tony' is an entertaining coming of age movie that's worth going to see and you might really enjoy it you have little or no knowledge of Anthony Bourdain's career and writing.

It might not blow your socks off but you'll have fun watching it nevertheless. 

('Tony' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on August 14, 2026)