Almost everyone in the world knows about McDonald’s.
The American fast food hamburger chain has made a name for itself since it was
started in 1940 by brothers Mac and Dick McDonald. Since those initial
days, it has become a global powerhouse with its name praised and reviled in
equal measures. ‘The Founder’ explores how it became such a culinary
conglomerate. It also shows the power of marketing and how brand
recognition allowed it to become a part of social culture.
In 1954 McDonald’s is a small fast-food chain doing good
business. Making profit on their humble outfit, the McDonald brothers
Richard (Nick Offerman) and Mac (John Carroll Lynch) are happy with their slice
of capitalism. Salesman Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) enters their lives and
nothing is ever the same again. Seeing potential for further growth, Ray
integrates himself into the company. Wanting to turn it into a world-wide
phenomenon, Ray’s efforts find him continually at loggerheads with those
failing to see his uninhabited vision.
‘The Founder’ is interesting in that’s its central character
is almost a villain. We aren’t watching someone triumph against adversity
but one creating it and winning at the cost of other’s hard work. Ray’s
opportunistic nature enabled him to see the ‘big picture’ in expanding
McDonald’s as a recognizable name. He was way ahead of his time as such
tactics are now commonplace. That doesn’t mean it was a good thing to do
as his clashes with the McDonald brothers reveal them to be victims of Ray’s
monetary idealism.
Despite playing a largely unsympathetic person, Keaton
inhabits the role well. He effectively allows the viewer to know where
Ray is coming from with his ideas even if you don’t necessarily agree.
Offerman and Lynch are great as the brothers, making one feel sorry for their
dealings with Ray even if their name now delivers dubious connotations.
John Lee Hancock’s direction is fine even if it drags out the narrative a
little. The pacing could have been better with Ray more clearly defined
than the almost ‘moustache-twirling villain’ he appears here.
An often engrossing history lesson on the genesis of an
empire ‘The Founder’ is a solid morality tale. How it grew due to one
person’s determination and skills is to be marvelled at even if his methods
were ones commonly used by the most successful of smooth salesmen.
Movie Review Rating out of 10: 7
Movie Review by Patrick Moore
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