This preachy take on Eric Schlosser’s book recasts it as fiction, which in theory is a promising way to handle the material. Unfortunately, though, director Richard Linklater (doesn’t a chill go up my spine just hearing that name?) can’t manage the three storylines he’s teased out: a marketing manager (Greg Kinnear) for a thinly veiled McDonald’s clone who’s investigating contaminated meat (because that’s what marketing people do, apparently); an illegal immigrant (Maria Full of Grace’s Catalina Sandino Moreno) and her husband (Wilmer Valderrama – yes, the kid from “That ‘70s Show,” who’s actually pretty decent here) who work at the plant that’s producing the contaminated meat; and a high-school student (Ashley Johnson) who works at the fast food restaurant but has her consciousness raised by hippie, treehugger college students.
Let’s see a show of hands here – anyone not aware that illegal immigrants come to this country at great risk and take shitty, low-paying, often dangerous jobs in an attempt to better their lives? Or that fast food restaurants are not overly concerned with hygiene, quality, the environment, their workers, or anything except the bottom line? Anyone? No? Okay, then you are all excused from seeing this movie.
And believe me, you’ll thank me. There’s an extended, gruesome sequence at the end of cows being slaughtered – and in a narrative sense, it kills what little momentum the movie has built up, as evidenced by the way the film just stops shortly afterwards, with no resolution. It’s like Linklater just wanted to spring this nauseating scene on you, and the movie up to that point was just to sucker you in (with sanctimonious speeches sprinkled in). Once he’s delivered his payload, he has no further use for the stories, so… The End. Hey, I’m not against message movies (see Blood Diamond) – I just resent being jerked around for an hour and a half only to end up with nothing.
And for the record… I am still eating meat.
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