The Founder Review
In the past couple of years, Michael Keaton has been having something of a revival of his career. After his Oscar-nominated turn in Birdman (2014) and a great supporting role in Spotlight (2015), his next big movie that was getting awards attention is The Founder, and while I thought the movie would have been better off with its intended August release date, it’s a pretty good movie overall with a really engrossing story and some nice touches that make it a really entertaining film.
The story follows Ray Kroc, an independent salesman in the 1950’s midwest, mainly selling mixers and other supplies to drive-in diners. However, one day he learns of a restaurant in southern California called McDonald’s, and when he visits, he learns of the now standard fast food service. He is impressed and demands the owners, Mac and Dick McDonald, to expand the restaurants, and that success will come their way. While initially reluctant, and citing a previous failed attempt at franchising, Ray talks them into it, and little by little Ray makes McDonald’s one of the most popular restaurants across the midwest, and as we now know, across the entire planet. But we see that a lot had to be sacrificed, buried, and changed to get there, and maybe not everybody is the hero we thought they were.
So one of the biggest strengths of the movie is the look. Immediately we’re in 50’s Americana-land with the drive-in restaurants and the cars and buildings, and the costumes and everything are on point. Also good is the direction from dependable director John Lee Hancock, who also brought us The Blind Side (2009) and Saving Mr. Banks (2013), both of which I liked. Then the cast, especially Keaton as Kroc, John Carroll Lynch and Nick Offerman as the McDonald brothers, and Laura Dern as Ray’s wife Ethel, give nice performances. Perhaps the greatest strength of the movie, though, is that it isn’t afraid to show us how dark and desperate it got for the characters. At one point Ray is this close to bankruptcy, then the brothers are being screwed over, then the wife is being deserted, you get the idea without giving away these particular story points. This is pretty refreshing, and with a company like McDonald’s needing to approve all this, you’d think they’d say, “No, let’s just make it all sunshine and rainbows”. But nope, we see just what bastards some of these characters can be. Also there’s a great montage scene where the brothers explain how they and the restaurant got started that was really well executed and it happens at a spot where if you’re not into the movie yet, you will be now.
There are a couple of things, though, that bothered me. First off, there’s this whole little subplot where Ray gets close with the wife of one of his franchisees, and it turns out to be a major event in Ray’s life, and aside from one or two brief scenes, the buildup to the reveal of what eventually happened between the two felt like it was left on the cutting room floor. When this does happen, though, it’s kind of a nice little development, but before we know it it’s shafted in favor of a really repetitive second half. Basically the second half goes like this: Ray goes out and does something and wants to change things in the stores, but then he calls the brothers and gets chastised for trying to breach the contract. This happens probably five or six times, and I get it. If you’re telling the story, you have to show an animosity growing between the brothers and the businessman, but once it gets into that rhythm, it rarely breaks from it, and it actually made the second half of the movie a lot less interesting than the first half.
Overall, this is a pretty good movie that could have been really one-sided and a glorification of this fast food empire, and while at times it feels like it will be, it is one until it isn’t, and that was great to watch; to see an expectation that’s set in your head by the opening act of the film turn around and become a story that isn’t afraid to bite more than it barks. Again I’ll praise the work of Michael Keaton, Nick Offerman, Laura Dern, and John Carroll Lynch as the core four characters, and I didn’t mention before, but Patrick Wilson, Linda Cardellini, and B.J. Novak also do good work in their supporting roles, and its all under the steady hand of John Lee Hancock, who I’m hoping continues to pick these good projects. While it’s not a movie that’s going to make a McDonald’s junkie never eat there again or a non-fast-food fanatic all of a sudden eat there every day, it’s still an entertaining story and a nice journey back to 50’s America.
My rating: 8/10.
