Fast Food Nation
DIR: Richard Linklater • WRI Richard Linklater, Eric Schlosser • PROD: Jeremy Thomas, Malcolm McLaren • DOP: Lee Daniel • ED: Sandra Adair • DES: Bruce Curtis • CAST: Patricia Arquette, Bobby Cannavale, Luis Guzmán, Paul Dano, Ashley Johnson, Ethan Hawke, Greg Kinnear, Kris Kristofferson, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Esai Morales, Avril Lavigne, Wilmer Valderrama, Lou Taylor Pucci, Ana Claudia Talancón

After the success of Morgan Spurlock’s documentary Super Size Me, showing the effects a month of McDonald’s-only diet has on a person, one would think that a film version of Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, told as a fictional movie as opposed to fact like the book, would be somewhat redundant. Despite the impressive cast that director Richard Linklater has managed to assemble, this in fact proves to be the case. From the film’s opening, there are ominous signs that there is trouble with the balancing of content and themes, and Linklater and Schlosser’s script is put under considerable strain throughout. An opening sequence of some dodgy retro music and a screen awash with tacky fast food décor may hope to set the tone for a damning indictment of the fast food industry, but unfortunately both Linklater (and one would infer Schlosser) seem to have spread the range of themes at their disposal too thinly, and taken on too many subjects for one movie: immigration, worker exploitation, sexual exploitation, US-Mexican relations, border control, role of large corporations… and so on.

The first real significant scene in the film is a border-crossing undertaken by numerous Mexicans, including Raul (played by Wilmer Valderrama), Sylvia (Catalina Moreno) and Coco (Ana Claudia Talancón). The crossing goes mostly according to plan, but from here on we see that the US and its lure of promise soon proves to be quite the opposite for these young Mexicans. Yet, should a film called Fast Food Nation really be focusing on illegal immigration? In some respects the issues may be interlinked, but simply put, this issue detracts from Schlosser’s main argument: large fast-food chains care little for the consumer.

As for characters and actors, the fact that Raul (Wilmer Valderrama) is played by the man who we all know as Fez from That ‘70s Show may set the alarm bells ringing from the start, but – fortunately for him – all the actors in Fast Food Nation are let down by a script that overreaches itself. All the film’s major actors seem out of place and thrown into a script that gives them little or no room to maneuver: Greg Kinnear, Ethan Hawke, Luis Guzmán and Bruce Willis all seem needless entities in the movie. Indeed, it is Ethan Hawke as Pete, Amber’s (played by Ashley Johnson) uncle who proves the most endearing of the film’s character, only for him to be shuttled off soon after arriving.

Ultimately, the film overreaches itself and is never quite sure whether it’s a documentary or fiction: on the one hand it’s an indictment of large, heartless multinationals, on the other hand it’s trying to address the issue of illegal immigration and the exploitation of workers such as Raul and the sexual exploitation of women such as Coco and Sylvia. However, across the board, the film falls flat. Pete’s moralizing to Amber in particular seems out of place and the sex scenes involving Coco and Sylvia seem unnecessary and redundant respectively. As a book, Fast Food Nation is powerful and shocking, and Super Size Me perfectly compliments this. Linklater’s film, however, seems misguided and rudderless and no amount of graphic cattle slaughter images come the end will detract from this fact. A nice idea, badly executed.

Rated 15A (see IFCO website for details)
Fast Food Nation is released on 4th May 2007.
Fast Food Nation – Official website
Read interview with Jeremy Thomas here.