Then I came across The Founder. What is The Founder, you might ask? Well, it's a biographical film about Ray Kroc. You probably, without Googling it like a cheating bastard, have no clue who Ray Kroc was. I didn't have a clue who Ray Kroc was, I will admit. Well, you know that dollar menu having, happy meal toting, quarter-pounder-with-cheese selling, red-roofed, golden-arched, nationwide establishment that gets a ton of hate for having too many food additives as well as serving one percent of the world's population every single day? Ray Kroc is responsible for purchasing and globalizing the brand "McDonald's". This movie is an adaptation of that. If they can make an adaptation about this subject, they can make an adaptation about anything. I hope one day they do a biopic about the world's first quesarito crunchwrap and how it changed America.
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| L-R: Nick Offerman as Richard "Dick" McDonald, John Caroll Lynch as Maurice "Mac" McDonald |
Anywho, the movie opens in 1954, Missouri. Ray Kroc (played by Michael Keaton) is a struggling milkshake maker salesman who's denied time and time again for his device that can make five milkshakes at once as opposed to the one that most machines typically make. Many buyers scoff at the offer seeing as how there's no business with a high-enough demand to make five milkshakes at a time. Until he gets a call from his secretary, June Martino (Kate Kneeland) about an order that was placed for six of his five-maker machines. He calls the restaurant that made the order to confirm it. Richard "Dick" McDonald picks up the phone and confirms the order, stating now they need eight as opposed to six because of the high demand. Ray then drives cross country, Missouri to San Bernardino, California to find this restaurant. He comes across "McDonald's 15-cent Hamburgers". He orders a hamburger, fries and a Coca-Cola for 35 cents (GOD THE 1950's MUST'VE BEEN SO FUCKING COOL) and has the order delivered to him immediately after ordering it, shocking him at the speed of the food prep. He meets the McDonald's brothers (Nick Offerman as Dick and John Caroll Lynch as Maurice) in the restaurant and what follows is an hour and a half of Ray committing practical robbery of their name and restaurant practices to franchise the McDonald's name across the entire country, other countries, and by 1970, building "a fast food empire that generates $700 million a year".
But that's just the real story of McDonald's and how two brothers with ground-breaking ideas were swindled and cast aside as Ray Kroc takes their ideas to the next level and turns McDonald's into the corporate powerhouse it is today. The movie even details some of the struggles Ray goes through to generate enough capital to ensure his venture's success. He even goes behind the brothers' backs quite frequently. The most notably is something that sounds like actually happened to McDonald's. Ray finds himself financially swamped by the rigors of running walk-in refrigerators to store and chill all the ice-cream necessary for the milkshakes. To cut costs and increase revenue, he trades the real milk & ice-cream in refrigerators for "Inst-a-mix" simulated milkshake powder. Because, you know, it's not like McDonald's to cut corners on food quality or anything.
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| Michael Keaton and "McDonald's #1" |
The real triumph of the movie is not just the adaptation of actual events, but the witty and persevering performance of Michael Keaton. I've given Michael Keaton a ton of credit for his acting credit in this blog...mostly for Batman but that's not the point. As Ray Kroc, Keaton is driving and commanding, while still retaining even a little bit of that goofy Keaton charm we remember from his late 80's, early 90's comedy movies. Keaton's seen kind of a resurgence here lately with Birdman and that shit-ass remake of RoboCop, so it's good to see that he continues to give awesome performances even at this point in his career. See that? He doesn't even need to wear pointy ears or talk to ghosts to be credit-worthy. Take that, society!
The rest of the cast all do their jobs pretty well. B.J. Novak, whom you might remember as Ryan Howard in The Office, plays Harry Sonneborn. The real Harry Sonneborn worked with Ray Kroc to revise his business plan to make it more fruitful for him. B.J. does a good job there. Laura Dern even stars as Kroc's wife Ethel, prior to divorcing him so he could marry his more famous wife Joan, played by Linda Cardellini. If you've ever watched Scooby-Doo from 2002, she played Velma. That's right. Fucking Velma is in this movie. Nite Owl from Watchmen is in here too, but of course, Patrick Wilson feels like he's in everything these days. He just pops up and "Oh my God, it's Patrick Wilson!"
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| An original design of McDonald's restaurants that is shown prominently in the movie |
The tone of The Founder goes off the rails as the movie progresses. You get to find out what a douche Ray Kroc was to the McDonald's brothers, as he extorts their name for his own personal gain. He starts buying the land that he franchises the McDonald's restaurants on so he can charge franchisees a fee to sit there and cook burgers. The movie goes from a triumphant feeling of partnership and a will to succeed to bitterness and regret as the McDonald's brothers, now ripped off and angry that their restaurant has been stolen from them, negotiate a bum deal that wouldn't even be worth spitting on. They each take a $1.35 million payout and negotiate for 1% of the annual gross profits of "The McDonald's Corporation" from here on out. The movie's epilogue tells you for the rest of their lives, they never saw a dime of any 1% payout per year. Nick Offerman gives a noteworthy performance as the bitter, apprehensive Dick (how fitting) McDonald, while John Caroll Lynch gives a lovable one as Maurice McDonald, the more ambitious and open brother. It's Maurice who goes into diabetic shock whilst screaming at Ray on the phone and it ultimately shows that he and his brother Dick have no choice in the end to settle on Ray's offer so Ray can continue being a global fast-food emperor. They didn't even get any Happy Meal toys. Shame, shame.
So yes, I enjoyed The Founder. Is it Oscar-worthy? Maybe not, but it tells a good story on a fascinating subject. For years, I used to wonder how McDonald's got so big and powerful and yet I never even bothered looking up the story. In 2017, McDonald's is a changed corporation. It has the notoriety of being cheap food that isn't very healthy and isn't worth making yourself sick over eating. I eat a lot of McDonald's, so I can vouch that the quality varies day-to-day. It's just cool to see that everything has a backstory, and McDonald's has a fascinating one. It's also great to see the McDonald's restaurant in its heyday. Before the quality-corner-cutting and the food additives, the "McDonald's coffee cup" lawsuit, the filthy Play-Places, the cheap fucking Happy Meal toys, there was Ray Kroc and the 30-second hamburger. Give it a watch if you got some time. It's entertaining to say the least.
The only thing I'm disappointed by is that there was no backstory to the Happy Meal toy, or the Play-Place. Michael Keaton crawling around a tube with six-year-olds being like "Oh this is a good fucking idea".
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