Ill-Informed Gadfly

Richard Linklater’s “Fast Food Nation” is an eloquent and sardonic epic about America’s cholesterol-industrial complex. Working from Eric Schlosser’s nonfiction exposé of the fast-food industry, Linklater traces the impact of mass-produced burgers on several rungs of the socioeconomic ladder. The sprawling canvas only sharpens Linklater’s humor, passion and observational precision. The heroes include a marketing executive at the fictional fast-food chain Mickey’s, a cashier at a Mickey’s franchise and the illegal immigrants who work at the meatpacking plant that produces Mickey’s patties. It’s a testament to Linklater’s maturity that the marketing guy, played with weary intelligence by Greg Kinnear, emerges as a rounded and sympathetic figure. He serves as the entry point into his company’s unsavory practices when he’s sent to investigate reports of contaminated meat. “Fast Food Nation” takes place in a made-up town that’s nonetheless painted with bracing authenticity, with its commercial strip peppered by dozens of chain restaurants. Linklater shows us these soulless eateries through the eyes of the Mexican plant workers, who view them as pristine symbols of American prosperity. “Fast Food Nation” has an equally complex emotional landscape, thanks to a brilliant ensemble cast including Catalina Sandino Moreno, Ashley Johnson, Bobby Cannavale, Ethan Hawke and Bruce Willis. Even as it exposes the harrowing underbelly of Big Food, this great movie argues that we are more than what we eat.

LISTEN: Fast Food Nation