2001 brought the American public inspiration to take a good hard look at the food we put in ourselves: a book by an then-unknown Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation. Two years later, in 2003, newborn fans relished in his new book, Reefer Madness, which billed itself as an investigation of "sex, drugs, and cheap labor in the American black market". After watching the recent DVD release of Fast Food Nation, I can only say the movie is a combination of Schlosser's two successful books.

The movie, adapted from the book by Schlosser and independent film director Richard Linklater, tells several overlapping stories in an attempt to show the "big picture" of the fast food problem that has taken the country. Like the book, Schlosser successfully conveys his larger message: that we're all connected in Corporate America; in one way or other, the purchase of the fast food burger, fries and soda promotes illegal immigration, misogyny, drug use, lower-middle class theft and apathy, and, of course, eating cow feces. As the audience, we come to understand these points through some bigger name actors, as well as several smaller celebrities who have either agenda-pushed in their career or have been in movies of an activist nature. Heading up the cast is Greg Kinnear. Also billed as a star is Ethan Hawke, though his role is far less substantial than I expected. Other performances by people with known and established careers (though not a full list) include those by Wilmer Valderrama, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Patricia Arquette, Ashley Johnson, Avril Levigne, Bobby Cannavale, Kris Kristofferson, and Bruce Willis.

Plot Summary
The movie starts out in a fast-food chain's ("Mickey's") offices, where Don Anderson (Greg Kinnear) discusses marketing successes and failures (movie deals lost to McDonald's and Burger King, for example) to help promote one of his new creations, the "Big One" hamburger. Already, readers of Fast Food Nation can see references to the book when Anderson discusses with the office food scientists different chemically-engineered "tastes" for the food. One of the major movie points is revealed when Anderson goes into a meeting with the Mickey's president, who tells him that there's cow feces in the meat, and sends Anderson off to investigate the problem at one of the company's plants in Cody, Colorado. The plot and story of the meat packing plant (UMP, as it's called in the movie) resembles investigations found in Fast Food Nation, as well as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, and Schlosser's Reefer Madness. It starts out by showing us Mexicans illegally crossing the border, including the couple, Raul (Wilmer Valderrama) and Sylvia (Catalina Sandino Moreno), and Coco (played by Ana Claudia Talancon). All of the illegal immigrants eventually end up cramped in a single hotel room, except for one, who we get to see die of dehydration from being left behind. Clearly, they're all starved for life's basic necessities (food, water, shelter) and so when the aggressive, misogynistic Mike (Bobby Cannavale) recruits several of them to work at UMP (including Raul and his friend), they jump at the chance.

Raul, his friend Francisco, and Coco are impressed at the money they make, but Sylvia "never want[s] to go in there again" and opts to get a job as a maid in a hotel. Stronger references to drug use than seen in the book are made in the movie when Sylvia first hears of crank use in order to "get the job done" at UMP. Raul confirms this, saying he isn't doing it, but understands why his coworkers do. Meanwhile, Coco gets caught up in a torrid affair with Mike, who gives her crank while they both have sex in the back of his truck. The Jungle reference is pretty clear when Raul and Francisco get caught in a work-related accident that causes Francisco to lose a leg. In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair makes a famous investigation of a man who falls into a meat grinder and the packing plant still sells the subsequent product. Reefer Madness gets notable around these parts of the movie too. Sylvia loses her job because the hotel discovers Raul using crank in the UMP accident, so she has sex with Mike in order to get a job at the plant just to keep a roof over their heads.

One overlaying story in Fast Food Nation the movie is that of Amber (Ashley Johnson), a 17 year old girl who works as a cashier at a Micky's restaurant in the same city as the UMP plant. Amber is a studious girl living in lower-middle class comfort with her single mother, Cindy (Patricia Arquette). Both Cindy and Amber try and make ends meet to keep their lives going, and Amber remains nonplussed at her job, especially with her coworker friends who are dropping meat patties on the floor and talking of robbing the store. Throughout the "Amber" parts of the movie, I couldn't help but be reminded of Tom Wolfe's novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons, which discusses many of the themes Amber is facing or will face soon as a young girl and prospective college student. Pete (Ethan Hawke), Cindy's brother, stops by for a visit amidst the girls' boring lives and pretty much gets up on a pedestal before disappearing again. He urges Amber to follow her dream of being an astronaut or to just "do something," and will give her $1000 if she doesn't have a baby by age 21. After Pete leaves (again, very short performance in my opinion), Amber finds a crowd of angry, activist college students (Avril Levigne among them). I Am Charlotte Simmons (or any story about college for that matter) is apparent here, as Amber is made to choose between "cute guys" her friends want her to meet or the pseudo-intellectual crowd. Her and the activist students get the bright idea to cut the gate for the cows at UMP. Though they accomplish this, the cows don't move out of their pen, which could be easily taken as an over-arching allegory of how corporate America's control isn't paramount, but we still buy the feces-laced meat.

Throughout the movie is perhaps its anchor: the story of Don Anderson's investigation into the big bad world of meat packing. I think Linklater and Schlosser meant Anderson's journey to most closely resemble the narrative and investigation found in Fast Food Nation the book. As Anderson ventures from the slogan-brainstorming, the taste-testing, and a visit to the local Mickey's, he starts to get into the underbelly of it all. He visits a former rancher, whose maid tells him just exactly how all the crap gets into the food. He visits a packing plant, and the people neglect to show him the "kill room", where the cows are brutally slaughtered (as depicted near the end). The more and more he sees, the less and less he eats. Anderson gets increasingly fed up with what he's discovering about the industry, but unlike the young, idealistic Amber, he thinks about the food he has to put on the table for his two sons and wife. This all culminates in perhaps my favorite speech of the movie by Bruce Willis, who plays a Mickey's Supervisor. Willis makes it very clear, while eating his cow-poo burger, that you just need to cook the meat at the right temperature. These immigrants are not being oppressed, they're making more money than Mexico ever gave them. America wants perfection and completely safe food and they're not going to get it. They just need to cook the food at the right temperature and stop being so wimpy. Further, Anderson should watch what he says because people don't like a whistle-blower, Willis tells him. In the end, Anderson does nothing substantial to help the problem.

My Reactions
The drug trafficking aspect of Fast Food Nation the movie threw me off guard, and I thought at first that Schlosser was going to push a different agenda than in his book. But, after getting into it, I really, really appreciated Schlosser's perspective. He kept his eye on the big picture and tried very hard to craft the problems of the hamburger into a compelling story. I've noticed critics have been disappointed at the movie's lack of shock-value. I'm a little confused: graphic sex with illegal immigrants, crank use to stay awake on the job, cow-feces in your burger, idealistic youth still working for the enemy; these aren't shocking? I think there are always two reactions to information found in Fast Food Nation: Either you've heard it all before, in which case you should be reminded of why you need to stay away, or it's completely new, in which case you should be shocked.

I wasn't necessarily appreciative of all the outside sources Schlosser pulled on in this movie. There was more than enough in his book to make two hours into a movie. Instead, he made it more dramatic with believable sequences, though they weren't necessarily based on his research. One such instance is when the cows are shown to be shot with a bolt in a head and killed. I don't remember that as the killing technique showcased in Schlosser's book. I have, however, read a substantially famous article by Michael Pollan in The New York Times Magazine that depicts this meat packing industry horror.

All of the performances were spot-on in my opinion. Ethan Hawke is believable in his small-town-boy-gone-rogue role, Ashley Johnson as the wide-eyed girl with big dreams, Ana Claudia Talancon as the illegal immigrant corrupt of drug abuse and jealousy, and especially Avril Levigne as the angry college student. Her appearance, as it is the case with many others in this movie, came as a complete surprise to me, and I was content, if not ecstatic to see all the roles done in such a believable fashion.

All-in-all, I hope you see this movie and keep an open mind. If you've read about the topic and it tires you, then see it for the graphic depiction of the meat industry. It certainly reminded me why I no longer trust meat, ever.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age