Fast Food Nation (Richard Linklater, 2006)

[Gregory]

Here's Eric Schlosser (the book author) talking about the film.

[Antoine Doinel]

Caught up with this tonight, and yeah, it's pretty bad. The film is actually tolerable during the first half that involves Greg Kinnear, but after his exit from the film, the latter half becomes Amateur Political Hour. I can't believe the film had literal scenes, with teenagers (including Avril Lavigne who, even in a movie, I want to punch squarely in the jaw) sitting around talking about The Man and how shitty things are. The hypocrisy that A.O. Scott sees in those scenes, was so insistent (complete with a visit from Uncle Ethan Hawke, the Idealist whose dreams haven't come to pass) as to be deadened. The entire film felt like a high school meeting of activists, with about as much depth as you might imagine those conversations might have.

I also felt the sexually deviant thread running through all the male characters (Greg Kinnear watches three pornos during his stay; Bruce Willis checks out a girls ass; Bobby Cannavale seduces the women and offers them drugs at the factory; the Mickeys manager is accused of checking out the teenage staff) to be entirely ridiculous. What is the argument being made here? That working with meat, will make you treat women like meat? Seriously?