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Derek Malcolm's rating
Bye-bye to burgers
By
Derek Malcolm
3 May 2007
It might have seemed a good idea to fictionalise Eric Schlosser's book about how your average burger is produced, but after seeing Richard Linklater's unfocused and rambling film, you know it would have been better as a documentary.
The movie certainly offers insights into the fast-food process, from slaughterhouse to plastic container and thence into unsuspecting stomachs, but its myriad characters are so thinly developed that when Bruce Willis comes on in a cameo to tells us that "we all have to eat a little shit" along with the gristle, bone and tissue, the relief is palpable.
Otherwise we have Kris Kristofferson as a neo-con rancher, Greg Kinnear as the greedy owner of a meat-packing plant, and Catalina Sandino Moreno as one of the illegal immigrants who are obliged, for long hours and lousy wages, to work there.
Fast Food Nation has good scenes and bad, as if Linklater simply doesn't know the difference and, though it may well make you vow never to eat a burger again (which is, after all, Schlosser's purpose), the film never really holds itself together.
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