22 plot ideas to make Burnt more interesting

Now Burnt, see, is a film about a chef, a bloody chef, and it looks very dull indeed. So dull that it was at one point called 'Chef', which is literally just the job of the person it's about, like if The Fugitive was called 'Vascular Surgeon'. Then it was called 'Adam Jones', which is not a good title for a film, or arguably a person. No one interesting has ever been called Adam Jones. Go on, name one.

It appears to be a film about a man cooking. I made a pasta sauce last night and, while it got a bit dicey for a second when I thought I was out of garlic but then I found some behind the paprika, it was not inherently dramatic. This is because there is very little at stake when cooking. And yet Burnt's poster warns us never to underestimate a man with 'everything to lose'.


In fairness, there is a moment in this trailer when Daniel Brühl tells Adam: "If you try to start a new restaurant, there are at least a dozen people who will try to have you killed." But this brief warning seems to be the only source of potential peril that doesn't hinge on a batch of malt loaf turning out a bit soggy. It also seems an unlikely scenario in itself.

We are here to help, though. It is not too late to save 'Cook: Origins', 'Kitchen Man', or 'Flambéed' or whatever it's called this week. Here are some potential plotlines that could sex it up a bit, only a handful of them involving actual sex.
Adam Jones has to cook a shark while it is still alive and trying to eat him.

Adam Jones is ordered to poison the President because ISIS have his family held hostage.

Adam Jones makes burritos while plagued by flashbacks to the night he accidentally cooked his wife.

On a tapas fact-finding tour in Bilbao, Adam Jones is taken hostage by Basque separatists.

Adam Jones has to bake a soufflé, carefully maintaining its structural integrity because the tin is wired to a bomb that will blow up Los Angeles if it collapses.

In a post-apocalyptic future, with food resources dangerously low, only Adam Jones's skills at cooking on a budget can effectively ration the planet before the population starves.

All of Adam Jones's saucepans are arranged so that, if hit on the lid with a spoon in the correct order, they will unlock a portal through time.

Adam Jones spills a bottle of balsamic vinegar which turns out to contain a bottomless supply, and must try to escape drowning as the kitchen slowly fills to the ceiling.

Adam Jones wakes in a kitchen with no memory of who he is or how he got there, and must piece together his identity using only a series of clues spelled out in rice by a mysterious stranger.

Adam Jones is actually Jason Bourne in disguise for a top secret and exciting mission that isn't about food.

Adam Jones has to cook the perfect dinner for his new boss (R. Lee Ermey) and his wife if he wants to land that big promotion. Unfortunately, a series of comedic misunderstandings occur, the final insult being Adam accidentally tucking the tablecloth into his waistband, standing up and whisking all the plates and food off the table.

Adam Jones learns he can fly but quickly realises that this is not a benefit in his line of work. It's a hindrance if anything.

On his day off, Adam Jones goes to the cinema to watch Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which we see in full.

Adam Jones invents Chicken 2.

Adam Jones puts his face in a collander for a joke but, chillingly, it is actually an African death mask meaning he is cursed to die within 24 hours.

While making a Scotch egg Adam Jones stumbles upon a new type of combustion that could potentially provide cheap sustainable energy for the whole planet, but shadowy figures in the energy industry want the secret kept under wraps and pursue him across three continents. His only ally is a sexy female scientist in a vest top.

Adam Jones's balloon whisk is fashioned from the melted-down steel of an ancient samurai sword which imbues the owner with the warrior spirit of the samurai. He uses it for cooler stuff than just whisking.

On a ghost pirate ship, cook and deckhand Adam Jones must cauterise the wound with a hot ladle after his arm is sliced clean off by a ghost monkey's cutlass.

The increasingly lawless city of Chicago develops a robot policeman which runs on a hybrid of gasoline and pancetta. Only Adam Jones has the exact recipe, and is hunted for it by the Mafia.

Adam Jones is a cook in the Vietnam war and can no longer rustle up decent scambled eggs because of the horrors he's seen.

Adam Jones develops a new hybrid of flour and durum wheat which turns out to be more effective for fingerprint-dusting than any comparable substance, and he becomes a sought-after forensic scientist until he is framed for a murder he didn't commit by a corrupt cop (Ray Liotta) who wants to escape arrest for the killing of his partner which he had previously covered up as a drug raid gone wrong.

Adam Jones's tupperware is haunted.
HT @yourturnHeather.