FAST FOOD NATION

WHAT’S IN YOUR BURGER?
Director Richard Linklater, whose films include "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset," has taken the 2001 non-fiction book, "Fast Food Nation," by Eric Schlosser, and, along with Schlosser, turned it into a dramatic film. They felt that this type of film rather than a documentary would reach a larger audience. Both book and film give readers and audiences a shocking, behind-the-scenes look into what goes into the burgers served by the ubiquitous, multibillion dollar fast food industry (I confess I haven’t read the book).

"Fast Food Nation" boasts a stellar cast from Patricia Arquette, Greg Kinnear, to Bruce Willis, and others. The film not only makes a statement about the fast food industry, it also goes into the issue of US exploitation of undocumented immigrants. Early on, there’s a scene of a Coyote bringing men, and women with children across the border from Mexico through the desert. Except for hiding in the bushes from roaming border guards and a suggestion from a fellow traveler about the correct footwear, the crossing seems more like a guided nature hike, bottled water generously provided. Still, we see a man,who gets separated from the group, staggering shirtless around the parched land. We assume that he has subsequently died en route when, on a later border crossing, a young boy discovers the missing man's boot lying on the ground. Linklater has been accused of overreaching by tossing in subplots about other activist causes - - including compensation for harrowing, disabling injuries on the job - - which some see as complicating the film, distracting us from, and adiluting, its initial message.

The immigrants end up working for UMP, a meat packing plant in Cody, Colorado, no questions asked as to their legality. UMP provides steer meat (actually, end products, scraps) for Mickey’s hamburgers. The place looks absolutely pristine, sterile, everything either white or gleaming stainless steel until workers, hosing down the vents on the roof at night, disturb colonies of rats which scurry across their boots. Danny Cannavale plays Mike, a sleazy, womanizing assembly line supervisor who makes out with vulnerable, lonely immigrant women in his pickup truck who have come to him with grievances. They fall in love with him, only to be tossed aside like, well, like useless pieces of meat.

Overhead shots range over acres and acres of dry, fenced off lands where thousands of head of cattle are corralled. You know they'll end up in fast-food burgers. Amazingly, Linklater was allowed to film inside a real slaughterhouse. His movie doesn’t stint on footage of terrified animals, eyes bulging with fear, being herded and prodded along narrow chutes. They are electronically stunned, chained, and hoisted by their hind legs. Workers, dressed in white from head to boots, methodically slit cows’ throats as the animals jerk along on the chain. Blood gushes out on to the floor and runs in gutters like rivers. Though grisly, I have to admit I found the process disgustingly fascinating. An unsettling shot shows a cart full of severed, skinned, dehorned cow heads, eyes bulging. What will to happen to them? Will they be dumped? Eaten? Cow heads and eyes - - if not every part of a cow - - are consumed by people all over the world, US included.

The film hinges on Greg Kinnear who plays Don Anderson, a product development manager for Mickey’s, a fast food chain that Linklater uses as a not-so-subtle take on McDonald’s. In fact, in some scenes, the "golden arches" of Mickey’s rival are plainly visible in the background. At a board meeting, a member brings up a rumor. It seems that that tests of the meat in Mickey’s Big Ones burgers bear traces of cow shit that might contain the e coli bacteria which could kill young children and the elderly. The film jumps from scenes at the plant to Anderson as he sets out for Cody to investigate.

He stays at a no-frills motel in the middle of the stockyards, crosses the two-lane highway for dinner at a Mickey’s where Esai Morales plays Tony, the manager. Anderson feels out the counterpersons, Amber (Ashley Johnson) and butter-fingers Brian (Paul Dano) who drops a frozen patty on the floor, blithely picks it up and slaps it on the grill. Both figure later as animal activists and Amber, in a wonderful, stereotypical employee-boss scene with Tony, quits her job.

I have personally experienced the powerful stench emanating from corralled steer, so was surprised when Anderson leans on a fence to check out his herd and takes a deep breath. I expected him to grimace and pull his head back. Instead, he reacts like he was inhaling the fragrance of a summer night rather than the acrid odor of manure and urine. Maybe Anderson has become inured. Pursuing his mission, he arranges meetings with present and former honchos at Mickey’s and UMP.

We meet a grizzled, wealthy cattle baron, Rudy (Kris Kristofferson), who lives in a spacious ranch house on his vast grazing lands. He'd once been a manager for UMPand now sells cattle to Mickey’s. Rudy's been approached by developers who want him to sell his land so they can pave it over and build strip malls. Rudy contends that if he doesn’t sell, he’ll end up like the dead bodies he finds dumped on his land; he rants on that the country is being taken over by machines and science fiction. Anderson gets down to the reason for his visit. Rudy explains plausibly how shit can get into meat. He sends Anderson to Harry (Bruce Willis, unforgettable in a small scene in a Sizzler-like restaurant). Harry's a middle-man supplier of UMP meat to Mickey's chain. Harry brushes off Anderson’s concerns about shit in the burgers, saying, "We all have to eat a little shit from time to time. Cars kill 40,000 people a year." Meanwhile, Amber, inspired by her sexy, activist, Vietnam vet uncle (Ethan Hawke), and Brian, along with several other young liberals, form an independent animal rights group. They decide to save the cows from ending up as Mickey’s Big Ones, but their efforts fail not because they didn’t try, but because the cows wouldn’t cooperate.

Don Anderson goes back to work with nothing to report. We see him in a final scene at a board meeting introducing yet another burger innovation. If the film inspires some theatregoers to become either vegetarians or activists, its done its job.

NOTE: An abridged, revised version of this review has appeared elsewhere in the print media.