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Fast Food Nation [2007]
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RRP: £15.99
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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review
If you're still eating that fast-food burger after watching Super Size Me, you might not feel too hungry after watching Fast Food Nation, a fictionalised feature based on Eric Schlosser's bestselling nonfiction expose. Director Richard Linklater, who cowrote the screenplay with Schlosser, guides a topnotch ensemble cast through a peek behind the veil of how that Big Mac is born. Much of the film focuses on the illegal immigrants who work in the loosely regulated meat-packing industry, and actors including the luminous Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace), who plays a desperate but outraged labourer. Greg Kinnear also delivers a spot-on performance as a fast-food chain marketing manager, trying frantically to discover the source of stomach-turning contamination in the company's meat. Stories are woven in unexpected ways, and cameos by the likes of Kris Kristofferson, Patricia Arquette, and especially Bruce Willis keep the narrative fresh. The film has a point of view, but thanks to Linklater's deft touch, is never didactic. As Willis's character slyly says, "Most people don't like to be told what's best for them." Agreed, yet Fast Food Nation likely will help the viewer be more conscious of what's on the end of that fork. --A.T. Hurley
They should've done a documentary instead
Review date: 2008-09-02 Rating: 6 out of 10
The film wasn't as good as what i initially thought it would be.
Rent it, dont buy it - you'll regret it if you do.
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Reviews
it doesn't work
Review date: 2008-06-18 Rating: 2 out of 10
Apparently this film is based on a work of non-fiction, which is perhaps why it doesn't work as fiction. To save your time and money these are the basic points of the film:-
1. Big corporations are evil.
2. Mexicans are exploited in the US (but get this, not only by Americans but also fellow Mexicans, wow!)
3. People are powerless.
4. Cows like being slaughtered.
5. A slaughterhouse isn't a very pleasant place.
6. Oh yeah, and apparently the meat in hamburgers isn't 100% beef.
pointless American liberalist dogooding which I'm afraid doesn't educate, unless you've spent you entire life up to the moment when you watched the film living in a hole in the ground. Overall another 90 or so minutes of my life gone. And just think, I'll never get that time back!
Worth watching
Review date: 2007-12-29 Rating: 6 out of 10
Lots of subtle messages aimed at educating people like me (no bad thing).
It opens a window on the crassness of American corporate greed and just how dull the mid-West can be.
Has this film stopped me from eating meat? No.
Has it stopped me eating mass-produced burgers? Oh, yes....
Not what I was expecting....
Review date: 2007-09-10 Rating: 6 out of 10
I expected a documentary along the lines of Fahrenheit 9/11, with interviews with McDonalds/Burger King/etc staff but instead it involves a fictional burger chain and tells the story of the workers, staring off with illegal Mexicans crossing the boarder to work in the slaughter houses. In fact, most of the movie is about how the slaughter houses are run.
The movie still manages to highlight the truth of what goes in the food we eat and how staff are treated, so it does manage to get its point across. It's quite funny in places too, although it does get a little dull nearer the end before the big finale - actual footage of what happens to the cattle once they arrive to be slaughtered.
Probably worth more of a rental than an actual purchase. Also: there are no extras on the DVD.
Like Syriana, but with burgers instead of oil (and not quite as good)
Review date: 2007-09-10 Rating: 6 out of 10
I very much enjoyed Eric Schlosser's book Fast Food Nation, which opened my eyes (and made me a little queasy in places) to the terrible state of modern food production. When I heard the film version was to be a drama rather than a documentary, I was pretty curious to see how director Richard Linklater was going to transform all those ugly facts into an engaging story. Turns out, he's used the Traffic/Syriana model, weaving together various threads to give us an all angles look at how those nice cows get from their fields to our buns.
Obviously, there's only so much you can accomplish in a film, which just doesn't have the space or time to cram in everything from the book. Still, Linklater and co-writer Schlosser do a solid job with this one, and each of the separate stories - the marketing suit investigating contaminants in the meat, the Mexican workers crossing the US border to do miserable jobs in horrible conditions, and the smart young restaurant employee with a moral dilemma - kept me interested throughout. If there's a problem with Fast Food Nation, it's that the dramatic side of things is on the weak side, leaving the film to feel, at times, like a loosely connected series of scenes rather than a cohesive whole.
One place where a film has a distinct advantage over a book is in its ability to use graphic imagery, which can convey an idea with much more impact than words on a page. That you get in the form of a nasty accident at a meat packing plant and a deeply disturbing look at the slaughterhouse killing floor, which I think is going to put me off red meat for a while. Trouble is, Linklater once again indulges his tendency to let his characters sit around and talk and talk and talk. Sure, they all have interesting to things to say, but it was the visual moments that hit home for me, so I wish he'd let his imagery do more of the talking.
The cast is very solid all around, especially Greg Kinnear as the marketing man who fears there may be poo in the meat, and Ashley Johnson as the Mickey's employee who begins to question her role in this nasty business. There are a few nice cameos, too, from Kris Kristofferson, the one and only Bruce Willis, and Linklater fave Ethan Hawke. Also, for some reason, Canadian pop punk moppet Avril Lavigne.
It's an ugly picture this one paints, but I think it's one we all have to see. If you've never read the book before, you can look at this film version as a kind of primer - an introduction to the unsettling truth inside your fast food bag. It has it's flaws (and doesn't quite have the impact that Traffic and Syriana had), but it's a decent, thought-provoking watch. I highly recommend that anyone who enjoys the film (or, if enjoy is the wrong word, is at least shocked enough that they want to know more) takes the time to read Eric Schlosser's book and learn more than you ever wanted to know about what's really in your food and how it got to your table.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Greg Kinnear
Ethan Hawke
Bruce Willis
Kris Kristofferson
Patricia Arquette
Creators:
Kris Kristofferson (Primary Contributor)
Patricia Arquette (Primary Contributor)
Director(s):
Recording label: Tartan Video
Manufacturer: Tartan Video
EAN: 5023965375223
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2007-08-27
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 109 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2007
Language: English (Unknown)
Language: English (Original Language)