On the Big Board |
Position |
Staff |
In Brief |
27/68 |
Michael Bentley |
Strong and engrossing first-half seques into a second half that sometimes flails and forgets where or what it is. |
141/159 |
David Mumpower |
Disgusting, sanctimonious trifle fails on every level. |
190/200 |
Max Braden |
No narrative connective thread. |
What's in the fast food that millions of people eat every day? Eric Schlosser's 2001 best seller led many people to give up eating fast food after informing them what exactly goes into the production of their double cheeseburger. A non-fiction book, it is oddly being made into a fictional film directed by Richard Linklater being released this fall by Fox Searchlight.
Greg Kinnear leads an ensemble cast as an executive of Mickey's Fast Food Resturant (gee, who's that supposed to be?) who, just like Schlosser in the book, ventures into the side of the business that nobody ever sees, that of the slaughterhouses, cattle pens, labratories and even in the resturants, where millions of teenagers and immigrants are all part of a plan by the corporations that run these resturants to make sure you don't learn the truth, as long as your cheeseburger continues to cost 99 cents.
In addition to Kinnear, the cast includes Patricia Arquette, Luis Guzman, Ethan Hawke, Kris Kristofferson, Avril Lavigne, Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace) and Wilmer Valderrama.
While a fictional adaptation of the book is quite strange, the cast, with Linklater at the helm, seem convincing enough to pull it off. Super Size Me earned $11 million in limited release, excellent for a documentary. With some proper marketing, and if audiences are eager to know more than what the fast food companies are telling them, this might be a fall release to watch. (Tim Briody/BOP)
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