Film Review: Fast food nation

Fast Food Nation tries to shed light on a host of controversial issues, but ends up not saying much at all.

Sure, many restaurants in America peddle less-than-wholesome foodstuffs. It's true that large corporations can be corrupt, seemingly soulless entities that chase after a perpetually falling bottom line. And indeed, illegal immigrants are exploited, taking unpleasant jobs in their desperation to make ends meet.

But in his cinematic crusade to grapple with these socially charged issues, writer-director Richard Linklater weaves a piecemeal and largely unsatisfying plot. In trying to fuse the authentic gravity of a documentary and the mass appeal of a fictional film, Fast Food Nation fails to achieve either.

Based on the non-fiction book by Eric Schlosser of the same name, Fast Food Nation follows the paths of three groups of individuals as they learn of the purported evils of the capitalist corporate machine. Here, this machine is personified by Mickey's, a growing fast-food chain. Mickey's marketing executive Don Anderson (Greg Kinnear) is sent to Colorado by his corrupt CEO to discover why Mickey's beef patties contain excessive amounts of fecal matter.

Although Anderson serves as a strong focal character for the first half of the movie, he disappears only to randomly return in the film's closing moments. Avril Lavigne, who plays a radical environmentalist, makes a laughably bad cameo in contrast to Bruce Willis' character who offers a shot of reality that the rest of the film lacks.

Whereas a film like Thank You for Smoking offers biting satirical commentary on American big business and politics, Fast Food Nation aims bluntly to shock and appall. Linklater's final scene includes explicitly graphic portrayals of cows being slaughtered and eviscerated on the "kill floor." What is supposed to be a scene heavy with despair, however, is rendered emotionally sterile. And although the film's philosophical intent is apparent from beginning to end, its true message gets hopelessly lost along the way.