The Founder

Year: 2017
Genre: Drama
Directed: John Lee Hancock
Stars: Michael Keaton, Nick Offerman, John Carroll Lynch, Linda Cardellini, B.J. Novak, Laura Dern, Kate Kneeland, Patrick Wilson, Justin Randell Brooke, Griff Furst, Wilbur Fitzgerald, David de Vries, Andrew Benator, Cara Mantella
Production: FilmNation Entertainment

Everyone loves a showman.

Hollywood has always had a complicated relationship with biographies based on entrepreneurs. On the one hand, film as an industry adores innovation; both in front of, and behind the screen. Sure the industry has a propensity to navel-gaze, has a somewhat dysfunctional, insular and dare I say incestuous relationship with itself, its resources, its talent and (cough, cough) it's accounting standards. Yet aside from some notable exceptions, the message we hear all the time coming out of Hollywood is: no matter who you are if you got talent, persistence and a bit of an ego, you can succeed in La La Land.

Greed is an alternative fact.

Yet whenever Hollywood points its magnifying glass elsewhere, at other industries, at other innovators, it becomes less about the innovation and more about corruption, avarice and ruination. If one were to draw a line through the skin-deep themes of The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), The Social Network (2010) and Steve Jobs (2015), you'd have an outline that says "GREED IS BAD" in big bold letters.

The Founder tries to be a different kind beast. It tries to have its Big Mac and eat it too which is saying something, considering the one thing you can say about Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg as at least they're not as craven as Ray Kroc. The film begins with Kroc (Keaton), desperately trying to unload milkshake machines into the laps of unwilling restaurateurs. His pitch is rehearsed, enthusiastic but slimy to the core; "are you familiar with the concept of the chicken and the egg," he starts. Most don't let him finish. He's the type of traveling salesman "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin was probably dedicated to.

One day, while checking his messages, Kroc comes across an unusually large milkshake machine order from a San Bernadino burger joint called McDonalds. Curious, Kroc stops by McDonalds; a journey that takes him through a Midwest full of mediocre drive-ins with slovenly food and long wait times. Then he gets his taste of his first McDonalds hamburger in 30 seconds flat sitting on a park bench. His response to the owners Dick (Offerman) and Mac (Lynch) McDonalds, "franchise, franchise, franchise."

Yes it's true Kroc never came up with the McDonald's brand; he never came up with the concept of fast food, the automation system in which that food is prepared, the company's fidelity to the all-American hamburger or, heck, even the name. Yet the movie portrays his embrace and rapid expansion of those ideas as an innovation in itself. He covets the McDonalds name as if it was a painting and he the artist. Every cent of capital, Kroc uses to build franchises nationwide. He even uses his home as collateral. Truly, he's the quintessential obsessive rogue we've all come to learn to admire.

He all but convinces us, the audience that he is deserving of the title "Founder". Yet the movie stops just short of being a working-class screed on the magic of capitalism. For one, the temperament of the McDonald's brothers and their "parade of no's," clings to the usual humdrum highlights we've seen done better in other films. Yet their impression on the film looms so large that most audiences will presumably walk away with the same "GREED IS BAD" message the film is trying to sidestep. They're the small guys, they're the ones who believe in quality control, they're the ones who keep high ethical standards - thus you best believe they're also going to get squelched by the time the film is over.

As the swindle is a matter of public record, its hard to fault a movie for being, you know, true. And had the movie leaned into an anti-avarice message, it may have approached the quality of a bonafide Oscar contender. But it didn't - and instead draws a picture of Ray Kroc that glinted with a Hollywood sheen rather than harsh lighting. Considering the subject, I would have rather the movie cooked him over a hot grill.

Final Grade: C