It wouldn't take much to turn me into a vegetarian. I watched this movie on TV the night before the announcement of the largest meat recall in US history, and I'm beginning to wonder if the fates aren't trying to tell me something? Poor hygiene, worker exploitation and animal abuse, were all laid out here on film, and then on the broadcast news next morning. Hmmm.
But while the message of this film is thought provoking and needed, the movie itself is a little disappointing. (And no, I haven't read the book, although I know I should.) It views like too much of a political tract and too little like a good drama. That may make it very worthy but it immediately limits who will bother watching it, and I suspect that mostly Fast Food Nation is preaching to the converted. The goodies are all too good. The baddies are all too bad. It could have done with more nuance, life is rarely quite so black and white. Famous names pop up from time to time, (Bruce Willis, Avril Lavigne etc), no doubt getting some 'right-on' credibility for doing their bit for the cause at minimum wage, but it would have worked better with a cast of unknowns. It's distracting to see a political movie degenerate into an "Oh look there's .." movie.
This is very much an ensemble piece, following the lives of a group of illegal immigrants from Mexico who go to work in and around a slaughter house and meat packing plant in Colorado. Alongside the migrants we see the school kids who work the local fast food joint where much of the meat ends up in cheap burgers, the promotions man from fast food HQ in New York who is sent to investigate an outbreak of e coli sourced to the plant, and a particularly nasty plant supervisor who extracts sex from the women as the price of earning a living wage.
Everyone is just trying to do their job and earn a living of course, but in doing so they inadvertently manage to create an unsafe, exploitative and abusive system both for the people who work in it and the poor dumb animals who get eaten. The female nudity (and nudity of either gender in film is not something I normally have a problem with) was maybe a bit gratuitous in this case. It added little to the story line. We know the slimy supervisor sleeps with the women. We didn't need to see their breasts to believe it. Alongside the images of the skinned cattle, it seemed heavy handed.
What the film perhaps doesn't emphasise enough, in my opinion, is that this is all being done to produce cheap food, which is, unfortunately what much of the country wants. Ask people if they want humanely produced meat and of course they will say yes. Ask them if they will pay extra for it, and again most will say yes. Then follow them around a supermarket, and watch how many actually put their money where their mouth is. Fast Food nation is a good idea inadequately realized on screen.
But while the message of this film is thought provoking and needed, the movie itself is a little disappointing. (And no, I haven't read the book, although I know I should.) It views like too much of a political tract and too little like a good drama. That may make it very worthy but it immediately limits who will bother watching it, and I suspect that mostly Fast Food Nation is preaching to the converted. The goodies are all too good. The baddies are all too bad. It could have done with more nuance, life is rarely quite so black and white. Famous names pop up from time to time, (Bruce Willis, Avril Lavigne etc), no doubt getting some 'right-on' credibility for doing their bit for the cause at minimum wage, but it would have worked better with a cast of unknowns. It's distracting to see a political movie degenerate into an "Oh look there's .." movie.
This is very much an ensemble piece, following the lives of a group of illegal immigrants from Mexico who go to work in and around a slaughter house and meat packing plant in Colorado. Alongside the migrants we see the school kids who work the local fast food joint where much of the meat ends up in cheap burgers, the promotions man from fast food HQ in New York who is sent to investigate an outbreak of e coli sourced to the plant, and a particularly nasty plant supervisor who extracts sex from the women as the price of earning a living wage.
Everyone is just trying to do their job and earn a living of course, but in doing so they inadvertently manage to create an unsafe, exploitative and abusive system both for the people who work in it and the poor dumb animals who get eaten. The female nudity (and nudity of either gender in film is not something I normally have a problem with) was maybe a bit gratuitous in this case. It added little to the story line. We know the slimy supervisor sleeps with the women. We didn't need to see their breasts to believe it. Alongside the images of the skinned cattle, it seemed heavy handed.
What the film perhaps doesn't emphasise enough, in my opinion, is that this is all being done to produce cheap food, which is, unfortunately what much of the country wants. Ask people if they want humanely produced meat and of course they will say yes. Ask them if they will pay extra for it, and again most will say yes. Then follow them around a supermarket, and watch how many actually put their money where their mouth is. Fast Food nation is a good idea inadequately realized on screen.