Fast Food Nation (2006) Fox Searchlight/Comedy-Drama RT: 116 minutes Rated R (disturbing images, strong sexuality, language and drug content) Director: Richard Linklater Screenplay: Richard Linklater and Eric Schlosser Music: Friends of Dean Martinez Cinematography: Lee Daniel Release date: November 16, 2006 (US) Cast: Patricia Arquette, Bobby Cannavale, Paul Dano, Luis Guzman, Ethan Hawke, Ashley Johnson, Greg Kinnear, Kris Kristofferson, Avril Lavigne, Esai Morales, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Lou Taylor Pucci, Ana Claudia Talancon, Wilmer Valderrama, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, Bruce Willis, Matt Hensarling, Aaron Himelstein, Cherami Leigh, Ellar Coltrane, Glenn Powell, Marco Perella. Box Office: $2.2M (US)
Rating: ** ½
In the 90s, a rumor floated around about McDonald’s using kangaroo meat in their burgers. I doubted its veracity then and now, but I knew something was up with their “all-beef patties”. If you’ve ever wondered what’s in that Big Mac you’re eating, you’ll want to read Eric Schlosser’s non-fiction book Fast Food Nation, a hard-hitting look at the fast food industry and the trail of that Big Mac from slaughterhouse to Styrofoam container. Published in ‘01 after being serialized in Rolling Stone in ’99, Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused) adapted Fast Food Nation into a fictionalized movie in ’06. He takes a Robert Altman-like approach to the material and the results are far less than one might hope.
Fast Food Nation is frustrating on multiple levels not the least of which is a promising start in which Linklater intercuts between two stories, a corporate executive investigating claims of fecal matter in the meat they use and a group of Mexican immigrants coming to the US. Don Henderson (Kinnear, As Good as It Gets), the marketing director for fast food chain Mickey’s, is sent to Cody, Colorado to look into Uni-Globe, the meat processing plant that makes the frozen patties Mickey’s uses in their top seller, the “Big One”. Although they assure him they follow the strictest guidelines regarding cleanliness and workplace safety, we know it’s a lot of bull fecal matter. This is what newly arrived immigrants Raul (Valderrama, That 70s Show) and Coco (Talancon, One Missed Call) find out when they go to work there as underpaid laborers.
A third subplot centers on Amber (Johnson, What Women Want), a teenage employee at a Mickey’s in Cody. She lives with her single mom Cindy (Arquette, Boyhood) and plans to attend college. Although a model employee, she suddenly quits one day. It seems she grew a social conscience about her job and the treatment of the cattle by Uni-Globe. It’s never fully explained how this comes about, but it has something to do with her new college-age friends she met at a kegger.
The movie’s greatest failing is Linklater, who co-wrote the screenplay with Schlosser, fails to develop several characters and subplots. Most times, he drops them altogether. Early on, we meet two of Amber’s co-workers, Brian (Dano, Little Miss Sunshine) and Kevin (Hensarling, Butcher Boys). They’re a couple of lazy lame-brains who talk about robbing the place and not in a kidding way. It’s forgotten which suggests that they’re either too lazy to do a hold-up or too dumb to remember their own conversation. And what’s the deal with Coco? She turns into a hot mess when she starts working at the plant, getting sexually involved with her abusive boss (Cannavale, Blue Jasmine) who gets her hooked on drugs. Then, all of a sudden, she cleans up her act without explanation. The script definitely would have benefited from a lot of fleshing out.
For the first half of Fast Food Nation, it seems that Don’s investigation will be the film’s focal point. NOPE! After a conversation with Bruce Willis’ character, he checks out of his hotel and the movie not to be seen again until the final scene. The most interesting characters like Willis’ go-between (Mickey’s and Uni-Globe), Kris Kristofferson’s (Lone Star) rancher and Ethan Hawke (the Before trilogy) as Amber’s college activist-turned-philosopher uncle only stick around for only a short time before exiting, usually a scene or two. In fact, I don’t even know what function Hawke’s character is supposed to serve beyond the actor working again with his favorite director.
The main points of Fast Food Nation are easy to get. They’re delivered repeatedly with the subtlety of a jackhammer. Basically, there are two main points: (1) we live in a fast food nation and (2) we all have to eat a little s***. Who doesn’t already know that the fast food industry chews people up and spits them out? Who doesn’t already know it’s a heartless corporation that doesn’t care about its workers? As for the second thing, it can (and should) be taken literally and figuratively. The problem with Fast Food Nation is the execution. It’s too rambling and unfocused to effectively drive home its message. Linklater spends too much time hanging out with his underdeveloped characters and not enough molding Schlosser’s book into a compelling and coherent narrative. It definitely loses something in translation.
I wouldn’t say Fast Food Nation is a bad movie; it’s just a disappointing one given the talent involved on both sides of the camera. It doesn’t really go anywhere in the end. It feels incomplete. And I really could’ve done without the graphic images of a cow being slaughtered and cut up at the end. I know Linklater is making a point by showing it, but it’s gross. Either way, Fast Food Nation is a big disappointment.
