BEFORE: I'm choosing not to commemorate the 9/11 anniversary today with a film, since I did that last year, and in my review of "The Siege" from July. Instead I'm sticking with my look at big business and the plight of the American worker. And tonight's film stars one of the former cast members of "That 70's Show", as last night's film did.
THE PLOT: An ensemble piece examining the health risks involved in the fast food industry and its environmental and social consequences as well.
AFTER: You'd think this would be a documentary, considering that it's based on a non-fiction exposé of the fast-food industry - but instead it's a fictionalized account, presumably containing much of the same information about how unclean (in several ways) the business is.
The film's central characters are: a "Mickey's" fast-food executive (Greg Kinnear, last seen in a cameo in "Blankman") who's sent to determine what's going wrong in a Colorado meat-packing plant; a group of Mexican immigrants (including one played by Wilmer Valderrama) who end up working at that plant; and Amber (Ashley Johnson, the little girl from "Growing Pains", all grown up), a teen who works one of the chain's restaurants, close to the plant.
The stories of these characters, plus the other people they interact with, form a large tapestry of interweaving plot threads - a trick the director, Richard Linklater, also pulled off in "Slackers" and "Dazed and Confused". However, the issue of how unclean the meat is gets obscured by other issues - immigration, the tedium of working for minimum wage, on-the-job sexual harassment, on-the-job injuries. These are all great topics for my look at American industry, but seem sort of off-topic from the original source material.
And the efforts of the people in the film who are trying to improve things seem to be in vain, so in the end the film is a giant shrug, saying "Well, what can you do?" This film sort of feels similar in tone to "21 Grams" or "Requiem for a Dream", where everyone is doomed and just circling the drain. And that's not to mention what happens to the cows... No, I'm not some health-nut who eats organic foods (or worse, a vegan), but I do try to think about where my food comes from, and occasionally I feel guilty about being part of The Machine - isn't that enough?
In the end, it's another tough film for me to rate, since it didn't really strive to be entertaining, or flat-out informative either.
Also starring Catalina Sandino-Moreno (last seen in "Maria Full of Grace"), Bobby Cannavale (last seen in "Paul Blart: Mall Cop"), Paul Dano (the teen from "Little Miss Sunshine"), and cameos from Luis Guzman (last seen in "Yes Man"), Patricia Arquette (last seen in "Little Nicky"), Esai Morales (last seen in "La Bamba"), Bruce Willis (last seen in "Live Free or Die Hard"), Ethan Hawke (last seen in "Training Day"), Kris Kristofferson (last seen in "A Star Is Born"), and Avril Lavigne.
RATING: 4 out of 10 hairnets
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