Movie Review - The Founder

The Founder (2016)

Starring Michael Keaton, Nick Offerman, John Carroll Lynch, Linda Cardellini, B.J. Novak, Laura Dern, and Patrick Wilson

Directed by John Lee Hancock

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix**

I can't tell you the last time I ate a McDonald's.  Still, I understand the restaurant juggernaut's appeal of providing cheap eats even if I was forever scarred from eating a McDonald's burger when as a young kid I attended a birthday party held at the fast food establishment and was given a sandwich with ketchup and pickles on it.  Such grossness was never forgotten.  Why am I divulging info such as this in a movie review?  Because The Founder details the formation of the fast food giant at the hands of Ray Kroc whose tenacious "take no prisoners" approach to business helped him become one of the richest men in America.

Kroc's wealth didn't come easy, however.  After struggling for years as a door-to-door salesman of kitchen goods, Ray Kroc (played by Michael Keaton) discovers the quick food establishment known as McDonald's in San Bernadino, California, after that restaurant's owners -- brothers Mac and Dick McDonald (John Carroll Lynch and Nick Offerman) -- decide to buy eight milkshake mixers that Kroc is selling.  The McDonald brothers transformed a drive-in into a walk-up fast-service establishment and found great success selling a limited number of items created in an almost mechanical, factory-like manner.  Kroc finds the process ingenious and convinces the reluctant brothers -- who had been burned by franchisees before -- to allow him to create several McDonald's outposts in the Midwest.  A strict contract detailing conformity in both the way the establishments and the food had to look was agreed upon by Kroc, but Kroc soon decides that he knows much more about running a "business" than the McDonald brothers.  At the very least, the ever-persistent Kroc thinks he knows more about how to make money and he does all that he can to try and bring more wealth into his pocket even if it means reneging on certain aspects of his contract wth the McDonald brothers.

Surprisingly engaging, The Founder owes much of its success to the believably slimy portrayal of Ray Kroc by Michael Keaton.  There's no doubt that Kroc carried a business acumen that would be envied by anyone -- and Keaton's Kroc certainly makes us envious of that aspect of his personality -- but he was also unethically egotistical.  Keaton portrays an outward cheeriness coupled with an "aw shucks" Midwest personality that masks an intelligence that undoubtedly allows Kroc to succeed at branding a commercial business where the McDonald brothers failed.  Perhaps the film could've been a touch more biting in its satire, but as it stands now John Lee Hancock's flick is an enjoyable look at an intriguing figure from the American business landscape.  And even though I've been scarred forever by the ketchup and pickle on that McDonald's burger from my youth, Ray Kroc proved to be a rather ingenious guy and The Founder helps to illustrate that.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+