Fast Food Nation

Starring: Patricia Arquette, Bobby Cannavale, Luis Guzman, Ethan Hawke, Greg Kinnear

Directed by: Richard Linklater

RS: 3of 4 Stars Average User Rating: 3of 4 Stars

2006 Fox Searchlight Pictures Drama

Eric Schlosser's nonfiction 2001 best seller, Fast Food Nation, started life at this magazine, but the bucking maverick of a movie he has scripted with director Richard Linklater (A Scanner Darkly) is cut from a different side of beef. It's less an expose of junk-food culture than a human drama, sprinkled with sly, provoking wit, about how that culture defines how we live.

The setting is Cody, a fictional Colorado town where everyone eats at Mickey's, the burger franchise whose meatpacking plant is located there. When company bigwigs find there's fecal matter in their patties, marketing exec Don Henderson (a sharp Greg Kinnear) is sent to Cody to investigate - meaning find the problem and spin it. Bruce Willis is scarily hilarious as a meat supplier who tells Don that "we all have to eat shit," as he chows down on "the Big One," Mickey's top-selling chunk of scalded cow flesh.

If the movie stayed on topic, we'd have a muckraking probe with roots back to Upton Sinclair's seminal 1906 book The Jungle and extending to Morgan Spurlock's 2004 doc Super Size Me. But Schlosser and Linklater are hunting bigger game. The shit in the burger is symptomatic of a larger contamination. There's Benny (Luis Guzman), who sneaks in illegal immigrants from Mexico to provide the plant with cheap labor. Soon, Sylvia (Catalina Sandino Moreno) and her boyfriend, Raul (the excellent Wilmer Valderrama), are on the line, with Sylvia trying to dodge Mike (Bobby Cannavale), the plant manager whose punishment if you don't put out is to put you on the "gut line," the dirtiest job in the place.

We also meet two local teens, Amber (Ashley Johnson) and Pete (Paul Dano), who work the counter at Mickey's, a job that Amber's Uncle Pete (Ethan Hawke) sees as dead-end. Amber joins a youth protest that's earnest but painfully disorganized: The group naively frees cows while neglecting exploited workers. And so it goes, as the fabric of an entire society is corrupted by the collusion of unchecked capitalism and government. The film is brimming with grand ambitions but trips on many of them as some characters aren't given enough screen time to register and others vanish just when you want to learn more about them. At the end, Linklater rubs our faces in the blood and guts as we watch real cows being slaughtered, in wretched conditions, for our dining pleasure. But the shocks that count in Fast Food Nation aren't on the gut line. They're in the faces of people whose spirits have been destroyed in the name of good business.

PETER TRAVERS

(Posted: Nov 13, 2006)

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Give us your review of
Fast Food Nation

Review 1 of 3

3of 4 Stars

I haven't eaten any meat since i saw this movie. I always knew that animals were treated badly but this was just the information I needed in order to really think about it and make some choices. I plan on sticking with alternate food; as far as the treatment of illegal workers, it also has made me think about all the workers that come here for "a better life" only to be treated as 2nd class. The worker at the dry cleaners, the crew that does our lawn work, the ladies who clean most of our neighbor's houses...I have been thinking about all of them in the last few days in a different way. The movie might not be one of the best I have seen, but it does send some messages and if it makes some people think about things the way I have, then it is worth viewing.

Nov 28, 2006 10:08:22

Review 2 of 3

3of 4 Stars

I'm finally glad someone had the courage to show the deplorable conditions of farm animals. This is what PETA has been trying to do for years. See the PETA webside. These defenseless creatures cannot defend themselves as people can!!

Nov 16, 2006 16:35:44

Review 3 of 3

1of 4 Stars

One of the worst movies I have seen in a very long time.

Though I agreed with much of the 'message' of the film, an
indictment of the fast food industry and its suppliers, as well
as the points made that were part social commentary, part
mistreatment of illegal immigrants, and unethical treatment
of animals, the film was a (VERY) odd combination of pseudo
documentary and standard film genre. The plot was weak at
best, the pace plodding, and the heavy-handedness of some
key messages overbearing.

I would strongly not recommend this film to anyone. And it
lacks integrity in keeping with the original intent of the book.

Nov 15, 2006 21:23:53

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