A movie with a good appetite
McDonald’s is a world-wide food phenomenon. But how did it all begin?
The Founder is a true story detailing how salesman Ray Kroc turned a small family business in San Bernadino into an international franchise operation. It’s not a pretty picture painted here by director John Lee Hancock because Kroc, it seems, was not a very nice man.
Cinema-goers may remember a hard-hitting documentary Supersize Me in which the documentary-maker ate nothing but McDonald’s for an entire month, and how it badly affected his health. That was a giant negative and the burger establishment quickly made healthy changes to its menu.
The Founder rests on the acute acting abilities of Michael Keaton who turns in a superb rendition in the lead role, forging a wheeler-dealer type individual who had great dreams and saw an opportunity to execute them – even if it meant alienating himself. Kroc , who worked tirelessly as a salesman for a milkshake machine company in the 50s, was down on his luck and battling to sell his product. Then something occurs when a burger establishment in California called McDonald’s Hamburgers orders six of the machines. He calls them to find out if this is a mistake to learn yes, they actually wanted eight. He visits them and meets the two brothers, Maurice “Mac” McDonald (John Carroll Lynch) and Dick (Nick Offerman), who take him on a tour of the kitchen. He sees how their slick operation works, thanks to an automated assembly line which they invented. The orders come out in minutes. Another facet is that there is no silverware – the McDonalds wrap their food in plastic wrap. Kroc has a vision of what McDonald’s restaurants could become and soon steals the business
right out from under its real founders’ noses. Robert Siegel’s script has holes in it and the film struggles with tonal shifts, but the message is clear.
It’s not just winning that is important but to trounce your opposition and become as big and as successful as possible no matter how much damage you do.
The McDonald brothers fell by the wayside – even losing the right to use their own names – and Kroc became a very wealthy man. Along the way he also jettisons his first wife (Laura Dern) for a new one, Joan (Linda Cardellini) – who is married to one of his franchise owners (Patrick Wilson, wasted in a small part) when they meet.
All in all, The Founder is absorbing and entertaining and you could well leave the cinema having acquired an appetite.