The new film Fast Food Nation covers quite a bit of ground but then it has alot on its mind. This new Richard Linklater (“Dazed and Confused”, “Before Sunrise”) film is based on the bestselling book of the same name which I hate to admit I haven’t read.
Fast Food Nation is set in and around a meatpacking plant in Cody Colorado and the US border where many of the undocumented workers who toil there make their crossing. We view this meatpacking plant from stories by executives from a burger chain who get their meat there, the workers from the plant and employees of a single burger franchise. The interwoven stories cover a canvas of so many different things Americans should be considering: the treatment of animals, immigration, food safety, ecology, the Patriot Act and multi-national Corporations and their influence in America. It’s pretty safe to say the Bush Administration, Congress and Corporate America will not embrace this film as it has much to say critically of their neglect of us.
This film plays and is shot in a cinema verite fashion but is scripted and not a documentary. An all-star cast featuring Bruce Willis, Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, Greg Kinnear, Wilmer Valderama and Kris Kristofferson amongst others play these characters who interact one way or another with this meatpacking plant. I don’t want to give too much away but Linklater weaves them in very cleverly to create a whole fabric of Americana at this moment in time. I recommend this film for anyone who cares about the issues involved as it is very well crafted and always intriguing.
I should have added that there is only one graphic scene in the plant and that is at the very end. It is done to equate the cow being slaughtered with the immigrant who is to begin work on the ‘kill floor’. It’s an important scene and belongs in the film.
Thanks for that little warning, wilfred. 🙂
I read the book last summer (it was our community-supported farm book group pick), and it was excellent. Very well-researched, with great detail about everything, from how the car manufacturers bought up the trolley lines and ripped up the tracks so people needed cars (which played into people wanting ‘fast-food you could eat in your car’), to the whole assembly-line approach of fast-food restaurants (and how that affected wages and employment), to the chemicals fast-food corporations use to make their factory-farmed and over-processed ‘food’ taste like something people keep wanting more of.
I’m glad Bruce Willis found gainful employment.
He’s really good in his scene playing a completely corrupt businessman who tries to justify his corruption.