The film Fast Food Nation, directed by Richard Linklater (Slackers, A Scanner Darkly) and based on the book of the same title by Eric Schlosser, explores implications of the American fast food industry and the effects of human obesity. With more than 125 million overweight adults in the U.S., pets are also being affected negatively by eating leftover junk food and sharing poor eating habits established by their parents. Chubby canines are packing on the pooch pounds at an increasingly alarming rate. Fast Food Nation provides an eye-opening glimpse, not only into what we are eating, but furthermore into the costs and risks of granting control of our food industry to a few mega-corporations. Many of the issues raised in the book and the film directly relate not only to our treatment of animals intended for slaughter, but also to pets and our ability to keep them healthy and safe.
“The book is a must-read,” says Ethan Hawke, who plays Uncle Pete, a guy concerned with seeing his bright, young niece escape the traps of working-class life in America. “It’s fascinating to get a better picture of how these fast-food corporations work and how that affects our lives and health.”
Linklater’s movie is fiction. He and Schlosser teamed up to write the screenplay, based on the book. They created a fictional town, Cody, Colorado, and a cast of colorful characters to embody the issues explored in the book.
“In this version of Fast Food Nation, it’s through seeing real lives and real jobs and what people are actually striving for that the issues behind the story emerge. I think I’m most proud that the movie makes you care about all kinds of people that you might never even have thought about before,” says Linklater.
The story begins when Don (Greg Kinnear), a marketing executive for the fictional Mickey’s hamburger chain, is sent to Cody to investigate the practices at the slaughterhouse that supplies the meat for the chain’s burgers. As he delves deeper and deeper into the system that he is promoting, we meet characters from every side of the story (and border) including: Harry (Bruce Willis, in a great performance) the man who bridges the gap between the corporation and the slaughterhouse; Rudy (Kris Kristofferson) the rancher whose land is being encroached upon by developers using eminent domain; Raul and Sylvia (Wilmer Valderrama and Catalina Sandino Moreno), illegal Mexican immigrants who work at the slaughterhouse; and Cindy (Patricia Arquette), single mother and fast-food worker.
The filmmaker and his producers had no trouble putting together an ensemble cast of name actors who were attracted to the material. Patricia Arquette said, “There haven’t been a lot of stories about the American worker or the middle-American living experience, so I think this movie provides a lot of interesting food for thought.”
As serious as all of these issues are, Fast Food Nation retains a strong sense of humor and amazingly manages to entertain as well as enlighten us. Richard Linklater is at his best when showing us a small world we have never seen before. Fast Food Nation does exactly that, provides an inside look at what really goes on behind all the fast-food neon, and how it takes a gigantic toll on the human and animal condition.
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