{"id":6076,"date":"2024-10-14T17:59:04","date_gmt":"2024-10-14T21:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6076"},"modified":"2024-10-15T00:03:01","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T04:03:01","slug":"fast-food-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/14\/fast-food-nation\/","title":{"rendered":"Fast Food Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Fast Food Nation <\/strong>(2006)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fox Searchlight\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 116 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (disturbing images, strong sexuality, language and drug content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Richard Linklater\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Richard Linklater and Eric Schlosser\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Friends of Dean Martinez\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Lee Daniel\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 16, 2006 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $2.2M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the 90s, a rumor floated around about McDonald\u2019s using kangaroo meat in their burgers. I doubted its veracity then and now, but I knew something was up with their \u201call-beef patties\u201d. If you\u2019ve ever wondered what\u2019s in that Big Mac you\u2019re eating, you\u2019ll want to read Eric Schlosser\u2019s 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 \u201801 after being serialized in Rolling Stone in \u201999, Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused) adapted Fast Food Nation<\/strong> into a fictionalized movie in \u201906. He takes a Robert Altman-like approach to the material and the results are far less than one might hope.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Fast Food Nation<\/strong> 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\u2019s, is sent to Cody, Colorado to look into Uni-Globe, the meat processing plant that makes the frozen patties Mickey\u2019s uses in their top seller, the \u201cBig One\u201d. Although they assure him they follow the strictest guidelines regarding cleanliness and workplace safety, we know it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0A third subplot centers on Amber (Johnson, What Women Want), a teenage employee at a Mickey\u2019s 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\u2019s never fully explained how this comes about, but it has something to do with her new college-age friends she met at a kegger.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The movie\u2019s 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\u2019s co-workers, Brian (Dano, Little Miss Sunshine) and Kevin (Hensarling, Butcher Boys). They\u2019re a couple of lazy lame-brains who talk about robbing the place and not in a kidding way. It\u2019s forgotten which suggests that they\u2019re either too lazy to do a hold-up or too dumb to remember their own conversation. And what\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For the first half of Fast Food Nation<\/strong>, it seems that Don\u2019s investigation will be the film\u2019s focal point. NOPE! After a conversation with Bruce Willis\u2019 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\u2019 go-between (Mickey\u2019s and Uni-Globe), Kris Kristofferson\u2019s (Lone Star) rancher and Ethan Hawke (the Before trilogy) as Amber\u2019s college activist-turned-philosopher uncle only stick around for only a short time before exiting, usually a scene or two. In fact, I don\u2019t even know what function Hawke\u2019s character is supposed to serve beyond the actor working again with his favorite director.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The main points of Fast Food Nation<\/strong> are easy to get. They\u2019re 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\u2019t already know that the fast food industry chews people up and spits them out? Who doesn\u2019t already know it\u2019s a heartless corporation that doesn\u2019t care about its workers? As for the second thing, it can (and should) be taken literally and figuratively. The problem with Fast Food Nation<\/strong> is the execution. It\u2019s 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\u2019s book into a compelling and coherent narrative. It definitely loses something in translation.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I wouldn\u2019t say Fast Food Nation<\/strong> is a bad movie; it\u2019s just a disappointing one given the talent involved on both sides of the camera. It doesn\u2019t really go anywhere in the end. It feels incomplete. And I really could\u2019ve 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\u2019s gross. Either way, Fast Food Nation<\/strong> is a big disappointment.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fast Food Nation (2006)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fox Searchlight\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 116 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (disturbing images, strong sexuality, language and drug content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Richard Linklater\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Richard Linklater and Eric Schlosser\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Friends of Dean Martinez\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Lee Daniel\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 16, 2006 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Patricia Arquette, Bobby Cannavale, Paul Dano, Luis Guzman, Ethan Hawke, Ashley Johnson, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6205,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Fast-Food-Nation-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6076"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6207,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6076\/revisions\/6207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}