(#12) The Founder (2016) - [8/10]

The origin of the world-famous fast-food chain isn't a pretty one.

Ray, a salesman, meets Mac and Dick McDonald who own a burger operation in Southern California. Impressed with their eatery and management, he realizes the opportunity to start a franchise.

How would I describe this film in one word?

Cruel.

Note Inspiring. Cruel. Heartbreaking. You would feel a mix of emotions watching this film but prominently the latter two by the third act of the movie.

Review

Michael Keaton plays a salesman turned business manager of a franchise of the McDonald's brothers. The movie initially tries to make you gain sympathy for Ray Croc's (Michael Keaton) failures as a salesman and then makes you rejuvenate with joy when he lands his opportunity to prove himself as a McDonald's franchise's restaurant manager. But as the film begins to progress and his franchises grow in number, we want to feel glad for him had his attitude to his growth not radically changed as well. His submission to his authority (the McDonald's brothers), his love for his wife and his morality depreciates while his company, his ego and his lust for wealth towers into a gargantuan empire. Michael Keaton plays the role so well that we are made to love and hate him all through the course of a 2 hour timeline. Do not mistake this as a narration of the film's story but rather the narration of the troubled feeling I was having through the course of the movie and I think John Lee Hancock crafts this suspense exquisitely.

This movie makes you realise how the giant corporate food chain is not indeed a restaurant corporation but a real estate one. Which brings its immoral foundation built by disloyalty, betrayal, and deception to the limelight. A company which was always judged for their lack of aesthetic and quality to their food can now truly justify itself as it is nothing more than a business enterprise. And the true McDonald's which believed in quality hamburgers and milkshakes died with the Mac and Dick McDonald.

RATING: 8/10

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Director: John Lee Hancock Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 1 hr 55 min Genre: Biography, Drama, History Starring: Michael Keaton, Nick Offerman, John Carroll Lynch