REVIEW - Fast Food Nation

Directed by Richard Linklater
Written by Eric Schlosser & Richard Linklater
Rated R - 114 Minutes
Released Nov 17, 2006

Way decent cast, awesome director, intriguing premise, its hard to figure out how this film could go wrong. Pardon the horrible pun but Fast Food Nation may have bitten off more than it could chew. There is simply way too much they try to do. Watching this movie left me feeling like I had spent nearly 2 hours as a dodge ball target for the local pro team. The film meant well but my final analysis could have been spoken by Garth Algar in that it was like watching a "a big plate of hurl."

The fast food industry is evil, so is the meat packing industry, no one has to convince me of that. I also don't mind watching a movie about either, and I can't help but think that if Fast Food Nation had found a way to focus on one or the other it might have felt a little less jumbled by the time the credits rolled.

There is plenty of good stuff in here, especially Greg Kinnear who carries the film early on. Too bad his character disappears for the most of the final two thirds and that's when the movie looses a lot of what it had going for it. Wilmer Valderrama was a good fit for his dramatic role, and Luis Guzman and Kris Kristofferson are Luis Guzman & Kris Kristofferson but that is in no way a criticism. I would pay to watch a movie with just those two guys discussing economics.

Fast Food Nation would have been better as a 12 part series on PBS than a two hour movie. Props for the intentions behind Fast Food Nation, but in the end it gets a "Read the Book," on the Mr. Blunderson movie scale.