There’s something prescient about the timing of The Founder’s release. Appearing just days before one of history’s biggest business moguls took the presidential office, this film feels like both a veneration of one of America’s greatest success stories and a stinging critique of the dangers of corrupt capitalism. Inherently at odds with itself by design and faltering in execution, The Founder is still an enjoyable film that questions a man’s decisions on his rise to the top.
The eponymous founder is Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton), a milkshake-maker salesman who stumbles upon a small diner in San Bernadino, California run by two brothers, Dick (Nick Offerman) and Mac McDonald (John Carroll Lynch). Impressed by the brothers’ speedy service and commitment to family values, Kroc recognizes their diner’s potential and strikes up a deal to franchise their restaurant in the Midwest. Using working-class couples to franchise out restaurants across the country, Ray quickly conquers the fast food industry. Driven by a greed, Ray undertakes to buyout the company from the brothers and seize full control.
The founding of the McDonald’s brand offers substantive material for a film. From its ironic title, referring to Kroc as the “founder” of the chain, to the ever-present big band music playing even during the film’s darker moments, The Founder approaches the action with its tongue firmly in cheek. Though Kroc’s machinations are morally dubious at best, the film portrays these events from an almost child-like perspective, allowing us to perceive Kroc as most Americans did at the time; he was just an average Joe making good on the American Dream.
Michael Keaton is the glue holding the whole enterprise together. With his old-fashioned drawl and sleazy grin, the actor imbues Kroc with a reluctant likeability, reminiscent of Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort or Ray Liotta as Henry Hill. He’s a shady, scrupulous man, but he’s so charismatic the audience can’t resist rooting for him in order to see what he’ll do next.
The film’s supporting cast members are no slouches either. Nick Offerman (known for his work on Parks and Recreation) embodies the everyman, the stubborn small-business owner fighting the corporate behemoth.
Through no fault of the cast, the film’s execution falters. Like The Social Network and The Wolf of Wall Street, the film chronicles the protagonist’s rise and inevitable, greed-driven fall. However, the film never quite strikes a balance between these two arcs. Too much time is spent selling the audience on Ray’s success that not enough lip service is given to the darker implications of his actions.
Part of the problem lays in director John Lee Hancock, Jr.’s direction. Unlike that of Fincher or Scorsese, Hancock’s is fairly flat, lingering too long on shots too long or failing to engage the viewer with his static camerawork. Compare any intense scene in the The Founder to the great tracking shot to Mrs. Robinson in The Wolf of Wall Street or the intense boardroom battles of The Social Network, and you’re left wondering what a more ambitious director might have done with the same material.
For what it is, The Founder is a fun, disposable watch. It contains enough infectious charm to rope you in, and while it exposes the underlying dark side of unbridled capitalism, it never becomes too preachy. However, it’s not quite willing to demonize the corporate machine, leading to a film that, like the burger it celebrates, is as satisfying as a lukewarm McDonald’s apple pie.
Grade: B
‘The Founder’ Explores the American Dream
Courtesy of the Weinstein Company
