Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight
'Fast Food Nation' review
Richard Linklater's big screen version of the blockbuster book fails to fill big shoes
By Caralyn Green
Published: November 26th, 2006 | 9:31pm
It feels wrong to pick on a movie like Fast Food Nation, which has all the best intentions; a truly talented cast and crew (who knew Wilder Valderrama could actually act?), the commendable message that corporations suck, meat equals murder, and the meat-packing industry, in effect, equals the murder of countless workers' "American dreams," whatever that phrase happens to mean anymore. A character study-cum-muckraking flick directed by slacker god Richard Linklater, Fast Food Nation is based on Eric Schlosser's 2001 investigative book by the same name. Where the written exposé stands as a meticulously researched and biting tirade about the fast food industry and how it pollutes America's diet, landscape, economy, workforce, and popular culture... the movie falters pitifully.
The story is weak, the characters are weak, and the dialogue is weak. Consequently, the message comes across as, well, weak.
Fast Food Nation is set in the fictional white bread town of Cody, Colorado, which houses the sole meatpacking plant for Mickey's, a national fast food franchise with a problem. That problem? There's shit in the burgers. Doe-eyed Greg Kinnear, the newbie Mickey's marketing man, is sent to Cody to investigate, which sets the scene for a mess of unresolved, cardboard-charactered narratives on how fast food destroys lives.
The meat-packing Mexican laborers (including Maria Full of Grace's luminous Catalina Sandino Moreno) endure sexual harassment, sexual violence, low wages, and perilous working conditions. The leathered-skin rancher's formerly vast land is increasingly suburbanized and under attack by global corporations. The small town girl harbors big college dreams, but peddles burgers for minimum wage and car insurance.
There's the requisite slew of pretentious, sermonizing diatribes (nothing we haven't heard before, and heard in more critically informed terms), not to mention the cinematic climax of gory, stomach-churning documentary footage of a real factory "kill floor." The final bloodbath, I guess, is supposed to shock and sicken viewers into action, but seems to stop at making most lay off the sausage for a day or two. I can't help but wonder if viewers would be called to arms if Linklater managed to slip more wit, irony, and intellect into this well-meaning but cookie cutter faux-docu-drama. Or are we, as a country and a culture, as burned out, bland, and lifeless as the Mickey's burgers themselves — too apathetic and unsympathetic to voice any dissent besides disgust?
Issue #23
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