Fast Food Nation

By Aditya Mhatre at 6 March, 2008, 1:00 am

Richard Linklater’s film is about the �fast food� industry, as the title suggests and is based on a book by Eric Schlosser, who also shares credit for writing the film version, along with the filmmaker himself. The film trails the journey of illegal Mexican immigrants who are smuggled into the US of A to work as cheap labour in a major food chain supplier�s meat producing factory, which goes into the American Dream burgers.

The film starts with Greg Kinnear, a top executive Mickey�s, a large fast food chain competing with a dozen others from KFC to Burger Kings to McD�s. He is called in by the CEO and told that there is a strong buzz doing the rounds that the meat patties that are supplied by UMP have a unusually high and potentially threatening levels of fecal coliform (read: they got �shit� in their patties) no pun intended! It is one of those dirty corporate secrets that everyone involved is aware of and no one wants to talk about, lest the word get out and they get sued for a substantial million dollar amount � sound familiar? It is. From thereon, we follow multiple story lines, involving Kinnear�s investigation of what�s actually going on, or going wrong at UMP, to a UMP Hitler-esque supervisor who fucks every moving thing with breasts and an ass, to a Mexican woman who comes into America with her husband and a group of strangers and mainly, Amber, a counter girl at the Cody�s outlet of Mickey�s, who is made for better things in life.

A major feature of Fast Food Nation, besides the potent subject material is the great ensemble cast including Greg Kinnear, Bruce Willis, Ethan Hawke, Luis Guzman, Kris Kristofferson, Wilmer Valderrama (the guy who plays Fez in That 70s Show) and Ashley Johnson among some other very credible performances.While the multiple story line narrative poses some restrictions on character building, the short lengths in which the stories are told are quite effective. Linklater doesn�t impose his material upon the audience and I think there is a good reason why that call must have been taken. One must also consider that the original literature piece, Schlosser�s 2001 non-fiction bestseller was a direct hit on the industry and its ways, while the film adapts a fiction format, though staying well within the tested docu-drama genre. I would imagine that another good reason for the call could also be to avoid being self-righteous or capitalize on sensationalism. Rationalizing further, that tone wouldn�t appeal to the youth. Linklater tells his story, with each of the characters and their contexts, as parts of the food chain, all of them trying to come to terms with their reality and the ideal. Especially with Ashley Johnson�s (Amber) storyline, taking her character of a bright, small town, teenage girl who finds her ideological passions with an eco-friendly group of fellow-students, Linklater provides very interesting perspectives as he did in one of his very early films, Dazed and Confused into the minds of the American youth, their beliefs, attitudes and resultant or inexplicable behavior.

The one aspect on which I did find the film lacking on control was the emergence and disappearance of sub-plots, the most interesting of which was two student workers who man the kitchen of the Mickey�s outlet as they dabble with the idea of a heist on the cash counter fades in and out as if it never happened in the film.

Bruce Willis who makes a 1-scene appearance as a VP who works a �little too closely� with their suppliers, which may explain his viewpoint on the �cow manure in the meat�, Ethan Hawke�s 3-scene appearance as a free-willed and encouraging uncle to Ashley�s character, Kris Kristofferson who also does his 2 scenes and never reappears are good actors that may have served the film well if they had stayed slightly longer and were not mere �commentators� on the story.

All said and done, I would say Fast Food Nation is a film with its heart in the right place, though the tone and execution, with a bit of adrenaline may have made a more impactful film.

The author, an aspiring film maker, also blogs at http://kartickslongroad.blogspot.com/

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Categories : Politics & Society