Fast Food Nation

Fast Food Nation is Richard Linklater’s sprawling adaptation of Eric Schlosser’s best selling book of the same name (dubbed “the dark side of the all-American meal”). Instead of simply cribbing the facts from Schlosser’s nonfiction source material, Linklater squeezes them surreptitiously into this fictional dramedy about the lives affected by the fast food industry. It’s a huge ensemble of great actors (and some not so great ones doing unexpectedly solid work) that centers around Greg Kinnear as a marketing agent for Mickey’s, a McDonald’s type fast food chain, as he investigates rumors that the packing plant which ships the Mickey’s meat is unclean and abusive to both animals and employees. This extends the story to the Mexican immigrants who work in the plant (a subdivision of the cast led by Catalina Sandino Moreno and Wilmer Valderamma). Also at the center of the story are Amber (Ashley Johnson) and Brian (Paul Dano) who work as teenage burger pushers in a small town Mickey’s. The cast is so large and the story is so crowded that Fast Food Nation sort of feels like Syriana with burger sales replacing international oil trade. It’s so exceedingly involved that it frequently becomes exhausting and sloppy, making this an interesting but troubled film.

This is also not really a film that will change people’s minds or their eating habits. Linklater clearly has a passion for this issue, but Fast Food Nation is not the incendiary muckraking cinema that he seems to think that he’s making. It attacks mostly obvious truths and doesn’t do much to shed new light on the subject of fast food indecency. Does anyone really deny that immigrant workers are treated badly or that the slaughter of cows is unpleasant? Do we really need to see a cow disemboweled just to double check this fact? There probably is a lot of information that could make people rethink their Big Mac, but hardly any of it seems to be in this movie. Its strengths are its flare for drama and its fun comedy coating, but even these aren’t enough to make it completely recommendable.

Linklater is a master of capturing charisma in close quarters. His gift as a writer is crafting playful and quietly powerful dialogue that conveys emotion through the simplest means possible. Fast Food Nation is uncharacteristically overblown and really stumbles when Linklater goes over the top and loses his subtlety and wit. When he gets Amber alone in a room with her mother (Patricia Arquette) and uncle (Ethan Hawke), the film suddenly feels intense and honest. It’s an almost nonexistent scene that doesn’t present any grandiose drama or staggering statistics. The scene just has Linklater writing a conversation between small town people about how fast food has impacted their lives and their town. That’s the sort of authentic and meaningful material that should appear more often here. Linklater duplicates the energy of this scene in many of his dramatic moments, but there are just too many scenes that fail for me to really be appreciative of his efforts. Plus, the movie is so shapeless and overextended that the really good moments end up feeling as though they are few and far between. Had he consolidated his story and sharpened his more explosive writing, Linklater might have properly grabbed the reins of this bumbler.

The absolute best scene comes when Amber rebels against her life of Mickey’s food service and joins an environmentalist group. This coalition of enthusiastic college students attempts to make a stand by cutting a hole in the local meat packer's fence in order to set the cattle free. Linklater brilliantly deflates their triumph by having the cows simply stand still and look confused. As it turns out, it’s much easier for the cows to mull around and eat the convenient food provided for them than it is to run free and fend for themselves. It says something strong about Amber and about society in general without any overdramatic incidents needed. For about 3 minutes the film is everything it wants to be: poignant, funny, and wholly unglamorous. If only there were more scenes like this one.

Grade: C+