"Knife Skills" (sounds like it has to do with ninja martial arts or so, but the focus is just slightly on violence, more on cookery) is a new 40-minute documentary short film by director Thomas Lennon, already an Oscar winner and multiple nominee for his works on China and film on film, so it is not too surprising he got in once more with his take on a group or criminals managing to operate a new French cuisine restaurant in Cleveland. Well, this is an underdog story, but honestly, I guess the protagonists here must have had some cooking experience at least because honestly otherwise there is no way this could have worked out the way it did with the (far too) expected happy ending. The moments when the film tries to deliver on the emotional scale do not feel too effective or authentic to be honest. A bit of a pity and I'd have expected better from Lennon. Also, perhaps half an hour would have been enough or even less as I felt there were moments when the movie somewhat loses his focus and just feels far too random and not on the point. It is not as bad as Traffic Stop, but still felt relatively insignificant to me to be honest. A good watch for the people featured in here and their families and maybe also for the people eating in that restaurant, but hardly Oscar (nomination) worthy and I am kinda glad it did not win as the actual winner was really a lot better. I think the people's background here helped the film score some more attention than it should have as liberal Hollywood really is all about these right now. Another problem I had was that it feels like there's just too many characters in here. You find out hardly enough about any of them and this becaomes especially painful when the film acts as if you made a deep connection with the former prisoners now restaurant workers. Overall, I give this one a thumbs-down and don't believe you should check it out unless you belong to the groups of people I mentioned earlier. It's like a poor man's version of Top Chef with social commentary. Not gone right. Not recommended. Not awards-worthy. Far too much over the place. Finally a little note to my fellow German imdbers: The reference between kitchen in the sense of the room where you cook and Kittchen as one German word for prison is quite a coincidence here given the film's subject is it not? That's all folks.

. . . one of the featured ex-convicts is shown driving past a Cleveland-area "Popeye's Fried Chicken" eatery. KNIFE SKILLS belabors the fantasy that the 650,000 prisoners America has to put out on the street annually (mostly in order to make room for new blood) can be trained in groups of 100 to open and run Five-Star French Restaurants within six weeks of their release! What a load of Foie Gras! There may be room for 6,500 "Popeye's" in America, but certainly NOT for nearly seven thousand over-priced Haute Cuisine Joints run by convicted drug dealers to pop up on nearly every corner ANNUALLY! (That comes out to about 140 greasy spoons catering to criminal culinary arts per state EVERY YEAR: While California may be able to stomach its apportioned perennial gross of such dives, can you imagine twelve dozen Con Heir Hangouts sprouting yearly, for each state, looming above the populace of Wyoming, Rhode Island, Delaware, Vermont, and Montana?! Neither can I.) Tens of thousands of upright, law-abiding U.S. citizens with NO police records slave away for minimum wages at nearly a million fast food locations dotting America from coast-to-coast. They do NOT want to see felons (who became that way due to their get-rich-quick schemes in the first place!) lording it over them, making ten times the money selling over-priced invasive foreign "entrees" to Fat Cat Bleeding Hearts who wouldn't be caught dead in their neighborhood White Castle or Steak & Shake.