Fast Food Nation

This fictional movie, adapted from a nonfiction book, is intermittently fascinating, said Stephen Hunter in The Washington Post. In adapting Eric Schlosser's best-seller Fast Food Nation for the screen, director Richard Linklater was smart to choose a Robert Altman–type format, in which several sets of characters travel through story lines more or less independent of one another. They're all connected to Mickey's, the burger conglomerate that uses unhealthy, sometimes evil practices to get ahead in the fast food industry. But in order to fit all of Schlosser's facts into the dialogue, 'œpoor Linklater has to keep bringing in guest explainers, who lay out one policy or other regarding Big Meat but have nothing whatsoever to do with the story.' Fortunately, the acting is stellar, said Bob Townsend in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Greg Kinnear is brilliant but underused as a naïve executive, and Bruce Willis delivers the line of the movie, in his one-scene role as a meat purveyor: When the suits visit his plant to investigate claims of fecal contamination of its beef, he tells them, 'œWe all have to eat a little s--- from time to time.' To its credit, Fast Food Nation doesn't force its argument down our throats, said Chris Kaltenbach in the Baltimore Sun. For all its disturbing tales of Big Meat, it 'œoffers no easy answers, but plenty of food for thought.'

Rating: R

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