Fast Food Nation
Review by Peter T. Chattaway | posted 11/17/2006
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Fast Food Nation
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MPAA rating: R
(for disturbing images, strong sexuality, language and drug content)
Genre: Drama
Theater release:
November 17, 2006
by Fox Searchlight Pictures
Directed by: Richard Linklater
Runtime: 1 hour 54 minutes
Cast: Greg Kinnear (Don Anderson), Catalina Sandino Moreno (Sylvia), Wilmer Valderrama (Raul), Ana Claudia Talancón (Coco), Bobby Cannavale (Mike), Ashley Johnson (Amber), Kris Kristofferson (Rudy Martin), Bruce Willis (Harry Rydell), Ethan Hawke (Pete), Luis Guzmán (Benny), Paul Dano (Brian), Patricia Arquette (Cindy), Esai Morales (Tony), Avril Lavigne (Alice)
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Whatever else it may be, Fast Food Nation is not a conventional drama, nor should it be approached as one. The latest film from the busy, eclectic Richard Linklater—whose credits in just the past three years have included School of Rock, Before Sunset, A Scanner Darkly and the Bad News Bears remake—is based not on a novel or short story, but on Eric Schlosser's best-selling work of muckraking journalism. And while Linklater, who wrote the script with Schlosser, has created fictitious characters and dramatic situations out of his non-fiction source material, the film's primary purpose is not theatrical or artistic, but social and political.
Luiz Guzman as one of a group of Mexican immigrants who find work in the fast-food industry
Unlike, say, Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me, which was primarily about the health problems inherent in a steady diet of burgers and fries, both the book and film versions of Fast Food Nation are concerned with the broader social trends that cut across not just the fast food industry, but the industrialized world as a whole. Farms and ranches have increasingly been replaced by meat-packing "factories," many of which keep prices down by hiring illegal immigrants—laborers who, because of their insecure status, are ripe for abuse by the company's managers.
Schlosser's book covers many aspects of the fast-food industry, but Linklater's film must, of necessity, focus on just a few, while giving tacit nods to the others. The first part of the film follows two basic storylines. In one, a group of Mexicans treks across the border—accidentally leaving one man behind to die in the wilderness—and is taken to Colorado, where some of them get jobs at a meat-packing plant. In the other, an executive at Mickey's Burgers named Don Anderson (Greg Kinnear) is sent by his boss in Anaheim to check out that very same meat-packing plant, because a potentially embarrassing study has found that there is fecal matter in the meat.
Catalina Sandino Moreno as one of the Hispanic workers at the plant
Don is no naïf, or at least he shouldn't be. He's a top-ranking vice-president whose most recent invention, a burger called "the Big One," is a runaway success, and he is at least partly aware of how these things are made; in one early scene, he visits a chemical lab to sniff the artificial flavors that give the burgers their taste. But he is caught off-guard by the allegation that there is excrement in the meat, and few, if any, of the people he meets will give him straight answers to his questions.
Meanwhile, the Mexicans pursue different career paths, most of them dehumanizing, as some take drugs to stay awake during their long, hazardous shifts at the plant, while at least one, Coco (Ana Claudia Talancón), sleeps with her supervisor, Mike (Bobby Cannavale), in the hope that it will help her get ahead at work. The film also follows a high-school student named Amber (Ashley Johnson) who works at the local Mickey's outlet but, with some goading from her uncle (Ethan Hawke), a former campus activist, gradually becomes dissatisfied with her life at the till.
Greg Kinnear as fast-food exec Don Anderson, and Kris Kristofferson as a crusty old rancher
It will come as no surprise that some of these characters end up selling their souls in one way or another, while a tiny remnant struggle, perhaps in vain, to hold on to some small measure of humanity. It's all a bit didactic, but it's actually rather impressive, how Linklater packs so many frames and so many bits of dialogue with details that help drive his point home—from the amputee who just happens to be sitting there when the Mexicans arrive for their first day of work, to the way a cynical meat supplier (Bruce Willis) takes a long, appreciative look at a waitress's bottom.
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