The Secret Sauce

Laura ( tori anderson) is in marketing, and is assigned to go cover a barbeque contest. When she arrives, the owner jim (corey sevier) seems to be set in his ways, and doesn't appreciate laura's ideas and suggestions. Pretty much every conversation they have is very awkward. He wants to keep everything just the way it's always been, and she keeps pushing for his restaurant to be bigger and better. This film starts pretty slow, and just stays slow. The only suspense here is that there's a secret ingredient in jim's bbq sauce, and laura is determined to figure out what it is. And apparently there's no board of health where they are, because the chefs don't wear hairnets or hats. Even laura comments on it. Nora mclellan steals any scene she's in... seems to be the warmest, most fun character here. What will the outcome of the bbq contest be? And does anyone care? Not really. Directed by phillippe gagnon. Story by tatiana krokar. Script needed some zinging up.

I liked this movie. It was fun and lighthearted! For contexts, I'm a BBQ contest winner, chef, culinary writer, and BBQ cookbook author. And I've worked with sponsors so I know how that works.

Yes, this movie followed the standard format & the plot points we've come to expect from these types of movies. But the two main characters had good chemistry. There were light hearted moments, funny lines, good writing, and the soundtrack was not repeated loops of boring music that played under every conversation.

Loved the side characters - nice sub plots! One thing that bugged me, they kept saying "grilling" which is high heat direct cooking while BBQ is low and slow. That's just a small thing, but I'm sure other BBQ people noticed. Overall, this was a movie I enjoyed watching.

Laura Glickman (Tori Anderson) is a marketing executive in Chicago. She goes off to a small town cook-off to recruit Jim Covell (Corey Sevier), a barbecue restaurant owner and the creator of a special secret sauce which is going viral. Only he won't sell or share the secret formula.

Tori Anderson does a fun bad dance during the meet-cute. She's a lovely actress and he's the nice stoic kind. It's a fine pairing. I would want more barbecue action. Cooking meat can be very satisfying. Have him cook the meat and watch people eating it. There is a section of that in the second half. It needs to be in the first half and it needs to be done better. They do have a nice enough kitchen montage in the first half. This is all very nice. It's not anything more than a TV romance movie. I do doubt that she owns her sauce but that's not that important.

Bad story, bad acting, bad production simply a bad movie. Who ever produced this movie put no money into the production. The same could be said of the cast and the writing. Certainly the writing was no different than a 5th. Grade grammar school play. This was so plain and simple that it actually made sleeping easy. It is much more effective than any sleeping supplement on the market. Other reviewers have described this drab attempt at producing a movie so we will avoid that issue. In summary please do not waste. Your time watching this attempt at film making, writing, acting and all the rest that this one lacks.