Fast Food Nation
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 Much like the cute smiles of a cat outside your window, those crafty golden arches have been drawing us in for years. Look hard enough and you’ll find even the fittest of the fit hunched up alone at the back end of a McDonalds restaurant a while before it closes. Even I find it difficult to just walk straight past a fast food joint sometimes, not because I accept the negative aspects of eating it but because I don’t really think about them. This movie is the alarm call that we all needed to hear.
Many people adhere to the “I don’t want to meet the cow before I have the steak” philosophy, but deep down we know its important to have some sort of idea of what we are putting into our mouths. Based on the best selling non-fiction book, “Fast Food Nation” is a semi-documentary drama set in the roughage of the fast food industry. From medical labs combining chemicals to provide a certain “natural” taste, to inner-office politics, the Writer/Director, Linklater delves into all the issues that the book did, except with the film there is a new character driven plot to spice things up a bit. First we meet the Mexican illegal’s (Willmar Valderrama, Catalina Sandino Moreno) who struggle through the treacherous border jumping process to settle in Colorado, where the only jobs they can secure are in meatpacking plants run by corrupt supervisors (Bobby Cannavale). Don (Greg Kinnear) is an executive at Mickey's, a fast food giant, sent to Colorado to investigate a claim that animal faeces is somehow getting into the meat that makes up the chain's biggest-selling burger. Amber (Ashley Johnson) is a lower-class teenager stuck working at Mickey's, but dreams a better life outside of minimum wage and dead end employment. Often uneasy and eye-opening viewing, this is likely to make even the most full-on burger fan think twice before ordering his next triple-layered bun, and those with a sensitive disposition may find some of the factory scenes unsettling - but thanks to Richard Linklater's smart direction the initial comic tone gives way to a more serious and thought-provoking second half. If it tickles your cinematic taste buds, it's probably not a good idea to book an after-show dinner. Engaging, thought-provoking and sharply written, this is an impressively directed drama with superb performances from its talented ensemble cast. Adapted by Eric Schlosser and director Richard Linklater from Schlosser's own non-fiction best-seller, Fast Food Nation is set in the midwestern town of Cody, Colorado and presents several characters with connections to the junk food industry. Greg Kinnear stars as marketing rep Don Henderson, who works for fast food giant Mickey's and is sent to Cody to investigate reports of faecal matter in the meat. Other characters include Mexican immigrants Sylvia (Catalina Sandino Moreno), her boyfriend (Wilmer Valderrama) and her sister (Ana Claudia Talancon), who cross the border with the help of a coyote (Luis Guzman) and get jobs at the meat packing plant in Cody. There's also Amber (Ashley Johnson), who's very happy with her job as a Mickey's cashier, until she has her eyes opened by some student activists (including Lou Pucci and Avril Lavigne). The film is extremely well structured, with the three main story strands covering all the memorable parts of the book without feeling too heavy handed. These include: the contamination of the meat; the dubious hygiene practices of bored, minimum wage employees; the exploitation of migrant workers and the realities of the slaughterhouse killing floor. Kinnear makes a likeable lead, while Ashley Johnson proves to be a star in the making and Moreno capitalises on her impressive work in Maria, Full of Grace. There are also some terrific cameos from the likes of Ethan Hawke (as Amber's laid back uncle), a busty Patricia Arquette (as Amber's mother) and an uncredited Bruce Willis as Harry, the bullish meat-buyer for Mickey's. The script is excellent and Linklater's semi-documentary style approach pays huge dividends, forcing us to question our own part in the industry food-chain. Fast Food Nation is an engaging, provocative film with superb performances from its cast. It'll also make you think twice about that post-film burger. Highly recommended. Burger executive Don Henderson (Kinnear) travels to the packing plants and ranches of Colorado to investigate claims that there is excrement in the meat. His story soon links with that of burger-flippers, illegal immigrants and ranchers. Recent history has seen the rise of the one-for-them, one-for-me philosophy, as practised by the likes of Steven Soderbergh and Guillermo del Toro. But when it comes to Richard Linklater, the lines are rather less clearcut. Just as his studio pictures — School Of Rock or Bad News Bears — are stamped with a unique offbeat sensibility, his one-for-me movies don’t always fit the too-strange-for-the-studios mould. Indeed, it’s easy to forget that the brain behind the wilfully culty A Scanner Darkly also conceived the heartfelt romance of Before Sunrise/Sunset. Adapted from Eric Schlosser’s non-fiction book of the same name, Fast Food Nation is another surprise, marking a return to the director’s filmmaking roots. Indeed, fans of Linklater will need to cast their minds back as far as Dazed And Confused to get a handle on this sprawling affair. Though seemingly a straight narrative, Fast Food Nation pulls a Psycho-esque stunt midway through when apparent leading man Kinnear vanishes from the mix. In his place, Linklater refers us instead to Amber (the engaging Johnson), a teen whose storyline bears little relation to the one that’s been developed, an intrigue involving contaminated meat. Suddenly that’s all gone, and instead we get the view of a disillusioned small-town kid on the burger-bar floor. It takes a little while to catch on, but this is really where Fast Food Nation starts to make its point. This isn’t a shrill vegetarian rant, or a trite anti-corporate polemic, but a fascinating attempt to engage with all areas of a complex situation, a study of the business of beef, from farming and production to marketing, sale and consumption. And key to this is the film’s framing device, involving migrant Mexicans making the hazardous trek across the border to find work in slaughterhouses. Though the bulk of anti-fast food arguments involve the ethics of conscience and health, Linklater’s film concentrates on the human cost, depicting how meat eats people rather than the other way round. Like the climactic scenes of cattle-culling (not recommended for the squeamish), it’s not a pretty sight, but Linklater has created another wayward one-for-me, a cautionary tale with something for all of us to chew on. A gross and engrossing attempt to humanise a hot-button subject, using a star-sprinkled cast to reveal some unpalatable truths.  Wilmer Valderrama ... Raul Catalina Sandino Moreno ... Sylvia Ana Claudia Talancón ... Coco Juan Carlos Serrán ... Esteban (as Juan Carlos Serran) Armando Hernández ... Roberto (as Armando Hernandez) Greg Kinnear ... Don Anderson Frank Ertl ... Jack Michael D. Conway ... Phil (as Michael Conway) Mitch Baker ... Dave Ellar Salmon ... Jay Anderson Dakota Edwards ... Stevie Anderson Dana Wheeler-Nicholson ... Debi Anderson Luis Guzmán ... Benny (as Luis Guzman) Bobby Cannavale ... Mike Francisco Rosales ... Jorge http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460792/ http://www.mininova.org/tor/1793094 
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