Inasmuch as Tony wants to be a scruffy, 1970s-style antihero drama, in the manner of The Last Detail or Scarecrow, it has the right face for it: that of Dominic Sessa, who broke out as the lanky, angry, boarding-school student in The Holdovers. Here he plays the late chef/author/travel show impresario Anthony Bourdain at 19. Rather than an antihero drama, however, Tony mostly wants to be a biopic of Bourdain—or at least the first act of one, as it dramatizes a single formative summer Bourdain spent working in a Cape Cod kitchen. And so its grittier elements—Bourdain’s violent impulses, penchant for lying, and drug and alcohol abuse–get sanded down in favor of an inspirational origin story. Sessa doesn’t give an inch, however, which goes a long way. Leaning into the leers and lies (it’s as if the truth gets stuck in his prominent Adam’s apple), Sessa gives you the sense that he could not care less about the likability of his character. It’s not too much of a stretch to see a bit of early Jack Nicholson or Gene Hackman in him. Tony also stars Antonio Banderas, doing his best to keep the sap at bay as the chef who gives Bourdain a job washing dishes; Leo Woodall, swaggering through the movie as a sous chef/chaos agent; and Emilia Jones in the thankless part of an unlikely love interest. Directed by Matt Johnson (BlackBerry, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie).
(8/10/2026)
