Spring Break
'Fast Food Nation' Leaves Odd Taste
DVD Review
Daniel Gross
Issue date: 3/12/07 Section: Focus
The best way I can describe this movie is as Linklater's version of "Traffic," but nowhere near as focused or provocative. Here, Linklater does not juggle plotlines, but instead throws them into the air with little regard for how they land, or even if they land at all. This is obviously an intentional narrative style for Linklater, and it's probably served him well in his earlier, smaller-scale films, but it doesn't work in this movie, which clearly has a serious political point to be made.
Linklater ends up fragmenting this burdensome political point into multiple less-focused ones, dealing with such things as the working-class system, the country's meat fixation, and the meat plant horrors that come with it. The anti-fast food message this movie should have been focusing on is only grazed over in Kinnear's scenes and the scenes involving two teenage fast-food workers, plotting a robbery rebellion that never occurs in the film. Those particular scenes embody the one big thing that's wrong with this movie: it's all talk, with nothing to back it up. Instead, we're left with endless dialogue scenes with underdeveloped characters we're somehow supposed to care about, coupled with not-so-subtle satirical and political jabs, like fast-food restaurants in the background of every outdoors scene. It feels like two different movies feuding for your attention, with neither one being the victor at the end. The only consistent quality this movie has is its tone, established effectively in the garish, desaturated color palette, the hand-held camera usage, and the jagged editing.
If you're looking for something to give you a compelling reason to never touch fast food again, you're better off renting "Super Size Me," or even reading the book this movie's based on, because you won't find it here. As an indiscriminate fast-food consumer myself, the only change this movie made me consider was cutting back on my meat intake. "Fast Food Nation" is proof that, to send a resounding call for reform aimed at the entire country, unfortunately, you can't tiptoe around it with cinematic convention.
Linklater ends up fragmenting this burdensome political point into multiple less-focused ones, dealing with such things as the working-class system, the country's meat fixation, and the meat plant horrors that come with it. The anti-fast food message this movie should have been focusing on is only grazed over in Kinnear's scenes and the scenes involving two teenage fast-food workers, plotting a robbery rebellion that never occurs in the film. Those particular scenes embody the one big thing that's wrong with this movie: it's all talk, with nothing to back it up. Instead, we're left with endless dialogue scenes with underdeveloped characters we're somehow supposed to care about, coupled with not-so-subtle satirical and political jabs, like fast-food restaurants in the background of every outdoors scene. It feels like two different movies feuding for your attention, with neither one being the victor at the end. The only consistent quality this movie has is its tone, established effectively in the garish, desaturated color palette, the hand-held camera usage, and the jagged editing.
If you're looking for something to give you a compelling reason to never touch fast food again, you're better off renting "Super Size Me," or even reading the book this movie's based on, because you won't find it here. As an indiscriminate fast-food consumer myself, the only change this movie made me consider was cutting back on my meat intake. "Fast Food Nation" is proof that, to send a resounding call for reform aimed at the entire country, unfortunately, you can't tiptoe around it with cinematic convention.
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