Gordon Ramsay’s movie debut gets a roasting

It's turning into a rotten week for Gordon Ramsay. After it emerged that so few people turned up to audition for his latest US television series that producers had to fake a crowd scene, it looks like cinema-goers, too, are set to stay away in droves from his movie debut, Love's Kitchen. Critics have called the film, which opens today, "appalling" and singled out Ramsay's part as "excruciating".
 
Yesterday the producers of the US version of Masterchef, on which Ramsay is a judge, apologised for doctoring an audition scene after a screen-grab of a faked crowd went viral on the internet.

The opening sequence of Monday night's episode featured shots of swarms of people congregating as a voiceover claimed that "thousands upon thousands lined up" to try out for the show.
 
But on closer inspection the footage (above) shows that at least three clusters of people - including some wearing bright orange and red jackets - have been digitally replicated to 'fill out' the crowd. Reveille Productions, the makers of Masterchef, admitted in a statement that it was "clear that the scene was enhanced".
 
No 'enhancement' or other post-production trickery is likely to be able to save Ramsay's big-screen debut, however. As predicted by The First Post, the restaurant romcom Love's Kitchen - which opens today - is set to be a flop after it was skewered by the critics.   

Reviewers were brutal in their condemnation of first-time director James Hacking's film, which stars Dougray Scott as a top London chef who loses his talent after his wife dies in a car crash. A pep talk from Ramsay (playing himself) inspires him to start up a gastropub in the country, where he also falls in love.
 
In a one-star review, the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw called Love's Kitchen "abysmal" and the script "poisonously naff". The Independent's Anthony Quinn also dished out a one-star review and lambasted its "amateurishness" while the Daily Mail's Chris Tookey dubbed it a "turkey".
 
Ramsay's cameo role came in for particular criticism, with both Tookey and Bradshaw describing it as "excruciating". As Quinn put it: "The cast perform as if they had never acted before in their lives. Gordon Ramsay, who has never acted before, can't even do a convincing impersonation of himself." ·