Fast Food Nation review

DVD of the week – Fast Food Nation might not be the easiest film to digest on a Saturday night in with a bag of popcorn, but not for reasons you might have expected.

If you’re on first name terms with all the staff at your local McDonalds Fast Food Nation won’t be an easily-digestible watch. That’s not to say viewers expecting gut-wrenchingly graphic scenes will find what their looking for – until the final few minutes that is. Instead the moral question of tucking into burgers and french fries comes under an uncomfortable spotlight.

Based on Eric Schlosser’s bestselling paperback, while the series of briefly interconnected storylines question the specific cost of America’s dedication to eating as quickly and as cheaply as possible, viewers in much of the western world will feel a twinge of recognition in the trio of scenarios. Sounds boring? It really isn’t that bad.

Greg Kinnear plays Don Anderson, an ambitious advertising executive for a fast-food chain called Mickey’s – which is not, the filmmakers are at pains to point out, based on McDonald’s. He is sent to investigate a food-processing plant where Mickey’s burgers are ground, as bacteria have been found in the meat, threatening their latest ad campaign.

In the second storyline, a group of illegal Mexican immigrants, including Sylvia (Catalina Sandino Moreno) and her husband Raul (Wilmer Valderrama) who incidentally offer the strongest performances, are employed at the plant in an attempt to earn an ‘honest buck’.

While the third sees high school girl Amber (Ashley Johnson) working at the local Mickey’s before her green classmates (including pop princess Avril Lavigne, in her first film role) engage her in a naïve, short-lived protest.

As the storyline develops Don Anderson discovers the processing plant is cutting corners, but it’s not what his bosses want to hear – and neither does Harry Rydell (Bruce Willis), a meat supplier who rationalises that nobody is going to die if a few rat parts end up in the meat.

Director Richard Linklater and writer Eric Schlosser treat all of the numerous characters with a similarly unsympathetic touch, avoiding cheap shock tactics by saving the graphic shots of exactly how a cow gets turned into hamburger until the storyline is enough to keep you watching.

Fast Food Nation could easily have been created as a façade for all manner of campaigners – and does indeed emphasise the health, environmental and social consequences of the fast food industry – but instead viewers get a supersized dose of food for thought, without the lecture.

Film: Fast Food Nation
Directed by: Richard Linklater
Starring: Greg Kinnear, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Wilmer Valderrama, Ashley Johnson, Bruce Willis
Classification: 15
Release date: 27 August 2007
Available from: Amazon.co.uk for £15.98

Jamie Sutherland
27 August 2007