Fast Food Nation
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Actor: Bruce Willis, Greg Kinnear, Kris Kristofferson, Luis Guzmán, Patricia ArquetteBrand: Fox
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Original Language); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 116 minutes
Published: 2007-03-01
DVD Release Date: 2007-03-06
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Reviews of Fast Food Nation
DVD Review: Interesting-yet-disappointing misfire of unfocused storylines and character
Summary: 3 Stars
How does one explain the charms of Richard Linklater's "Fast Food Nation" without recognizing that its most wonderful, honest moments reveal it as a failure?
We expect a tactical strike on fast food restaurants and the meatpacking industry. A film version of "The Jungle," or at least the Eric Schlosser book it's based on. But Linklater crafts something much tamer. "Fast Food Nation" is not sunny, per se, but it's hardly a satire; it takes frustrating Linklatarian detours. It says too much, too incoherently.
It mirrors real life, to some extent - how often do we communicate poignantly and pointedly? - but, given the book as a template and a free shot at the business, it whiffs like the local scholar at the coffee house might. Many scenes are excellent little gems of writing and acting, but they're also beside the central point: Fast food is a disgusting industry, organically and morally, and yet, built on the backs of the poor and overweight, it's essentially unstoppable. We expect a fearless work that begs for lawsuits. "Fast Food Nation," instead, exercises its table manners in all the wrong spots.
Set in fictional Cody, Colo., the movie unsuccessfully juggles three storylines, all of which revolve around fast food chain Mickey's.
One involves a group of illegal immigrants (Wilmar Valderrama and Catalina Sandino Moreno among them) sneaking across the U.S.-Mexico border to work in a meatpacking plant. The plant is being investigated by Mickey's executive Don Henderson (Greg Kinnear) for mixing [...] into the meat that becomes Mickey's signature "Big One" hamburger. The third plot concerns a bright, working class high schooler named Amber (Ashley Johnson), who faces the dim prospect of wasting her best years at a local Mickey's joint.
These plots never really intertwine; rather, they run alongside each other, telling the fast food story from different angles. Surprisingly, the executive's journey to Cody makes the most impact, as Linklater sends Don on an investigation full of sharp cameos (Kris Kristofferson, Bruce Willis) that essentially confirms his fear and yet leaves him little way to change it. Willis' single scene, where he plays a liaison between Mickey's and the meatpacking plant, is spot on in its depiction of indiscriminate, willful corporate greed. Willis, never an actor`s actor, knows the guts of this character; he eats his burger, sloppily and ravenously, like a vulture. It's a terrific performance.
The immigrants' plight deserves its own movie, and some of set ups (a cute Mexican girl falls under the sexual influence of a abusive supervisor) never quite pay off. Linklater takes jabs at the meatpacking industry without ever fully teeing off; he reveals the "kill floor," with its gut streams and blood puddles, at the very end, after several random detours. Valderrama is unmemorable. Moreno mostly stands on the sideline.
The final story, involving the girl, is the most perplexing. Here, it seems Linklater is attempting to inject the ennui from "Slacker," and "Dazed and Confused" into the dim-lit Mickey's restaurant. The 23-year-old Johnson actually seems like a confused kid, but her longest scenes are spent conversing with her hardened mother (Patricia Arquette) and "cool" uncle, played by Ethan Hawke.
The three actors share some nice moments, and these conversations lead Amber toward some local college activists (one of whom is Avril Lavigne) and a daring act of protest. And yet, again, this little diversion seems beside the point.
Which isn't to say the unconventional approach is worthless. "Fast Food Nation" unfocused as it seems, doesn't come off like some Michael Moore tirade. Kinnear's character and performance is meant to humanize Mickey's to some extent, and Esai Morales portrays an uptight-but-decent Mickey's supervisor.
Aside from the meatpacking supervisor and Willis' delicious villain, "Fast Food Nation" is a movie of normal, scared, private Americans quietly get ground up by the machinery of big business. Problem is, none of them really know that, and the movie doesn't seem to, either. It underachieves by merely being smart and observant. It is as helpless as that Mickey's executive, who sits in a board room at the end, wishing to be somewhere, anywhere, else.
Description of Fast Food Nation
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