Fast Food Nation
November 15th, 2006 | by jg3 |
I got to see a screening of Fast Food Nation. I have not yet read the book, but I didn’t really like the movie. I may spoil the suprise but I won’t tell you everything…
I expected a documentary a-la Farenheit 911. Instead I got a drama about three types of people: those who choose not to quit, those who choose to quit, and those who can’t quit but should. This movie is marketed as “political” but that’s just crap. It is a drama with meat as a catalyst.
First of all the film does a good job of setting the viewer’s perspective up as outside this America looking in. In fact, I think the most poignant illustration this movie makes is that we are becoming one gigantic suburb. A Megaopolis. What used to be ranchlands in small-town Wyoming eroding under the weight of development pressure. The small town that was excited when a burger joint came to town and put them on the map is now a thouroughfare of endless franchise food.
The fast food restaraunt that is the catalyst for the story is fictional and that makes the film feel less like a truth distribution medium and more like entertainment. In fact, the introduction of several common fast food industry stereotypes only decreases the effect of any suprising revalations the author may be trying to make. You may be suprised to learn while watching this movie that hamburgers are made from cows who are slaughtered in an assembly-line production optimized for time and monetary efficiency without too much regard for the comfort and safety of either the product or the employees. It is also true, that those same fuzzy-wuzzy little mooers have eyeballs that look really gross when all the skin is pulled off of their faces. Where did that footage come from? I had to look down at the bottom right corner of the screen to see if there was a translucent PETA logo. The camera work seemed different from the rest of the “drama” portion of the film so I wondered if it was perhaps really some activist footage.
The acting in the movie wasn’t really something I thought about while watching it, which is a good thing. Except for two characters: Avril Lavigne, who you might be suprised to learn is NOT an actress. And Bruce Willis. His character was supposed to make me hate him, which is good because I hate all characters portrayed by Bruce Willis anyway. Done.
I’ve been a Richard Linklater fan (somewhat) since Slacker and I like how he approaches things like he is on his own planet. That’s good. This, however, was far too processed to retain his fingerprint. It did not really inspire me to take action. I’m not an inch closer now to becoming a vegetarian or swearing off fast food. The tagline “do you want lies with that?” is clever and all, but I didn’t pick up on any exposure of the foodservice industry that I wasn’t already aware of. The closest this movie came to being political was when one character says something to the effect of, “the most patriotic thing we can do right now is to violate the patriot act.” That would be a strong statement, but it is too well rolled into a story line to be a real call to action.
You might also note that the film is put out by Fox Searchlight which means that it is associated with Fox. I’m no conspiracy theorist, but I’m not inclined to trust anybody less than Fox. Just my opinion. Furthering this is the fact that on the film’s official website are several links to other places to give the appearance is that there are a lot of other people interested in this movie and it’s movement. Well those links aren’t really to very much and there’s not a lot of content there and what content there may be behind them is just stupid. Again, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, just an observer. All this hype is here to do only one thing, generate intrest in a movie that won’t generate it any other way.
Filed under: Movies
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