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Fast Food Nation
Starring: Wilmer Valderrama, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Ana Claudia Talanc?n, Juan Carlos Serr?n, Armando Hern?ndez Director: Richard Linklater Average Rating: 
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If you like "Fast Food Nation", you might also like ...
Super Size Me |
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| Customer Reviews 1-5 of 108 | NEXT >> |
2008-12-30I should of just read the book instead. Judging from some reviews, the book seems to be a lot better than the movie. The movie just seems fake to me because I wasnt presented with new surprizing facts about the how fast food Resturant operates. I thought I would be getting some movie similiar to Sicko and Supersize Me. The movie makes me feel like they are trying to connect two movie into one but fail to do that. If you are looking for a good doccumentary on the corruptions and evil doing of fast food Resturant, I think you will be disappointed.
2008-10-02Fast Food Nation didnt make me a vegeterian. I guess I'm like most people: when it comes down to the dirty details, I'd rather not know. Like war, noone wants to see a bunch of dead and maimed soliders. To have an idea of something is one thing: to actualy know, see, and understand that thing is quite another. We hear about illegal workers coming into this country, and we hear about subhuman slaughterhouse condidtions--all of these things we hear about in abstract. But seeing these issues in a specific context enables us to understand these issues.
Fast Food Nation is a fabric of interwoven threads. The film opens in a dark alley in a U.S. border town in Mexico. Smugglers collect fees from a small group of poor Mexicans. The scene shifts from Mexico to the corparate offices of Mickey's Burgers in Anaheim California. The CEO of Mickey's Burgers has a problem: a culture test found high levels of fecal matter in their frozen patties. The CEO sends an executive--played by Greg Kinnear--to trace the source of the infection. The film shifts back to Mexico. Smugglers proccess a bunch of poor Mexicans through a labyrinth of sleazy motels and packed vans. Eventually, the Mexicans cross the border into the U.S. and wind up in a grimy drop house. Here, the supervisor of a meat proccessing plant--a tall sticky-looking white male--looks over the human livestock. He waves a casual finger around the walls and the floor selecting the stornegst males and the most attractive females.
A couple of new hires are led through the meat proccessing plant. The floors and walls are spotless and glowing. The employees' uniforms are snow-white. The new hires recieve their white shiny hard-hats, their white shiny aprons, and take their places at the recieving end of the production line--the last stage of the meat proccessing line; the kill-floor is the first stage of the meat proccessing line. Another plot-thread involves a teenage girl named Amber who works at one of the Mickey Burger chains. She's bright and inteligent. She has a lot of potential, but she's afraid to leave Mickey Burgers because it is her first job. Back at the meat proccessing plant, there's drama at the slicing section of the production line: jealousy. A couple of female line-workers strive for the affection and favoritism of the line-manager. The females use their bodies to negociate favors from the line-manager. In another plot-thread, a group of young Eco-activists sublimate their frustrations against animal abuse by freeing cows from the ranch that supplies the meat proccessing plant. But when the gates to those filthy pens fly open, the cows--with dung and urine clinging to their legs--refuse to leave. The activists kick and yell at the cows, but the content animals remain in the filthy pen where they'll eventually be slaughtered and tranformed into Mickey Burgers.
Greg Kinnear, Bruce Willis, Kris Kristofferson, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Luis Guzman, etc., all performed well in this underrated film from 2006.
Richard Linklater and Eric Schlosser, who authored the bestselling expose of the same title, co-wrote Fast Food Nation. Linklater is one of my favorite directors; his films are both brainy and intertaining. The disparate elements of Fast Food Nation--illegal immigration, animal abuse, sexual abuse, corparate greed and irresponnsibilty, etc.--converge into a grisly and powerfull metaphor on the consequences of fear and complacency. In many ways, humans and cows have much in common. This is a great film with an important message. I highly recomend it.
author of Gotta Be Down!
2008-09-11Ok, so I bought this movie b/c I don't eat burgers, fries, ect....any fast food would be Subway...b/c I can WATCH them make the food...and now I have more of reason than ever...when that kid SPIT in the food, I freaked...I mean I know this stuff happens, but still!!
My problems w/ this movie are that some parts are very boring. Too much talking, and not enough action...I did NOT care for the sexual parts, there was no need to put pure sex w/ nudity in this movie...it served NO purpose to the meaning of this film.
It does make me think twice though...I had no idea how awful the slaughter houses were, and what the cows go through...that was disturbing, and I was bothered....
I felt strange for the rest of the night, and wish I would have never watched the movie....it's a movie I would sell or give away in a heart beat. I plan to NEVER watch it again.
If you have $12 you want to spend on a DVD...find something else to spend it on....
2008-07-26Fast Food Nation I would rate as a good not great movie. It exposes the meat packing and food services industry as not all that sanitary and certainly not compassionate. The groups of teenagers, illegal inmigrants, and phony and even unsavory corparate suits show the viewer that the all mighty dollar is king and many workers are just pawns in their universe.
There are some slow draggy moments in the film especially the border runs to pick up the illegal aliens. Nonetheless, I beleive this film has started a trend of people becomming more health concious and turnng more to vegatarianism.
2008-07-23Linklater produces a movie that leaves you wondering how three basic story lines were even put together in the first place. The message of the fast food companies putting their profits as their highest priority gets muddy in the story lines leaving you feeling disconnected from this powerfull message. A disenchanged businessman, illegal labor, and teenage angst fail to bring the powerfull message home to the viewer.
All story lines were good in their own right, and honestly could have been made into three seperate story lines, or their should have been mingling of the plot lines to make the movie stick together. Fantasic performences from a varity of famous names fail to make the movie gel, the matieral for this movie is simpley lacking.
I would read the book only if you wanted to learn about the darker side of fast food. Many points in the movie are worth educating yourself, and helping you to make better descisions. A weak story line simpley fails to do this important topic any justice. If this movie is on tv, and you can't find your remote it may be worth watching, but I wouldn't go out of my way to watch this film.
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| Editorial Review |
If you're still eating that fast-food burger after watching Super Size Me, you might not feel too hungry after watching Fast Food Nation, a fictionalized feature based on Eric Schlosser's bestselling nonfiction expose. Director Richard Linklater, who cowrote the screenplay with Schlosser, guides a topnotch ensemble cast through a peek behind the veil of how that Big Mac is born. Much of the film focuses on the illegal immigrants who work in the loosely regulated meat-packing industry, and actors including the luminous Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace), who plays a desperate but outraged laborer. Greg Kinnear also delivers a spot-on performance as a fast-food chain marketing manager, trying frantically to discover the source of stomach-turning contamination in the company's meat. Stories are woven in unexpected ways, and cameos by the likes of Kris Kristofferson, Patricia Arquette, and especially Bruce Willis keep the narrative fresh. The film has a point of view, but thanks to Linklater's deft touch, is never didactic. As Willis's character slyly says, "Most people don't like to be told what's best for them." Agreed, yet Fast Food Nation likely will help the viewer be more conscious of what's on the end of that fork. --A.T. Hurley
Extras from Fast Food Nation
 Fast Food Nation Arcade-Style Game |
Beyond Fast Food Nation
 Super Size Me |  Fast Food Nation (Paperback) |  Fast Food Nation: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture |
Stills from Fast Food Nation
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If you like "Fast Food Nation", you might also like ...
|
Super Size Me |
Sicko (Special Edition) |
Fast Food Nation |
The Last King of Scotland (Widescreen Edition) |
The Good Shepherd (Widescreen Edition) |
