Fast Food Nation

Inspired by Eric Schlosser's non-fiction best-seller "Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal" and directed by Richard Linklater, this modern day film parallels Upton Sinclair's muckraking novel "The Jungle" by exploring the abuses of illegal Mexican immigrants who work in a meatpacking plant that incorporates unsafe and unsanitary working conditions so that it might fuel the fast food industry with a cheap supply of ground round of questionable quality.

Both Linklater and Schlosser are credited for this film's character driven dramatic screenplay, and if not successful as a film in its own right, it is a gripping damnation of this nation's fast food industry and the ensuing greed of the meatpacking conglomerates who exploit cheap labor while employing slipshod processing practices to supply said industry with inexpensive, and potentially unsafe, beef.

While the screenplay is weak, its subject matter is not, and a host of excellent actors both well-known and unfamiliar give some stellar performances. While incorporating such noted names as Greg Kinnear, Patricia Arquette, Kris Kristofferson, Bruce Willis and Ethan Hawke in mostly cameo roles, the real stars of the film are mostly unknown actors who portray a group of Mexican illegal aliens and American youths in Cody, Colorado.

The story begins with Mickeys (a fictitious fast food chain) marketing executive Don Anderson (Greg Kinnear) being sent to investigate how cow feces is making its way into the chain's number one selling burger, Big One. While Anderson travels to Cody to visit Uni-Globe Meat Packing "where every single Big One patty in the entire country gets made," the film follows a small group of Mexican men and women crossing illegally into the US. They travel day and night over the open Mexican desert led by a guide to a deserted dirt road where Benny (Luis Guzman) picks them up and deposits them at various locations including Cody where Uni-Globe waits to exploit their labor. In an early scene, which foreshadows the link between cheap Mexican manpower and Mickeys fast food, Anderson pulls up beside Benny's van at a stoplight in Cody.

Anderson tours the Uni-Globe plant and its shiny stainless steel machinery and employees in spotless white uniforms impress him. He is sure his boss's worries are unfounded until he speaks with rancher Rudy Martin (Kris Kristofferson). Martin's Mexican housekeeper, whose brother works at the plant, explains to Anderson how cow feces get into the meat. The workers removing the intestines are forced to work at such a rate that inevitably an intestinal wall is punctured, and, "All the poop and stuff just pours out all over the meat." Inquiring how often this happens, Anderson is told quite matter-of-factly "every day."

Towards the end of the film we are shown up close and quite graphically the slaughtering of cows. This is not for the squeamish. I can appreciate graphic violence in films when it is intrinsic to the story, but the slaughterhouse scene in Fast Food Nation is truly repulsive. And I don't really see how it adds to the message of the movie except to possibly turn one's stomach to the point of not wanting to eat beef anymore. While the act of killing the cow is quite painless, to see what happens to it after the fact is terribly gruesome.

Had it not been for the cameo appearances of Bruce Willis et al., the film would have been interminably boring. But there is a part of the film that I rather enjoyed, which is towards the end when Amber (Ashley Johnson) and Brian (Paul Dano, from Little Miss Sunshine), employees at the local Mickeys, together with some of their high school friends, in a show of civil disobedience, decide to free the cows by cutting a hole in the fence. One young dissident after hearing the perils of prosecution under the patriot act, pipes up, "Right now I can't think of anything more patriotic than violating the patriot act." They are all disappointed, however, when the cows refuse to leave. "Next time we take cattle prods."

For all its shortcomings, I am glad that I watched Fast Food Nation. While it is not a great film in itself, it proves to be a bold statement regarding the state of our nation. As Rudy Martin points out to Anderson, "This isn't about good people versus bad people. It's about the machine that's taking over this country. It's like something out of science fiction. The land, the cattle, the people. This machine don't give a shit. Pennies a pound, pennies a pound. That's all it cares about. A few more pennies a pound." Somber words, indeed.

DVD extras

Screenwriter Audio commentary by director/screenwriter Richard Linklater and author/screenwriter Eric Schlosser

Manufacturing Fast Food Nation [The making of the movie]

Photo Gallery

The Meatrix [Short Animation -- See http://www.meatrix.com]

The Meatrix II

The Meatrix II 1/2

The Backwards Hamburger [Short Animation Promo for Film]