By Mac Spain
Directed by John Lee Hancock who previously brought us 2013’s Saving Mr Banks, and that was a film which focused on Walt Disney trying to convince the author of Mary Poppins to sign for a movie deal. It was really quite touching and something of a tearjerker, whereas this is more of a startling character study. It’s based on a true story in case you didn’t know and it has Michael Keaton playing the role of a man named Ray Croc.
Ray Croc started out as a travelling salesman in America, we see him go from place to place in an effort to try and sell these multi funnelled milkshake makers, yet despite Ray’s shire determination and drive, he’s basically being shown the door everywhere he goes. You do find yourself connecting with him for that reason, because I think we’ve all been in that position at some point or other in life, where all your hard work just feels like the equivalent of walking up a down escalator. One day Ray receives a call from the office and is told of this one restaurant in San Bernardino which has actually order six of these multi funnelled milkshake makers, so he decides to drive on over and check it out.
What Ray discovers upon arriving almost seems to put his eyes on stalks! Unlike so many other fast food restaurants of the time, this place was called McDonald’s and delivered a service that had never been seen before. Ray’s fascinated as he walks up to the window and receives his food just seconds after placing the order, and I too was fascinated because it’s not something I’ve ever really given much thought to. Nowadays McDonald’s feeds 68 million people every day, it’s hard to believe there was once a time where McDonald’s didn’t exist, but there was and before it came along service within the fast food industry was appalling! Ray Croc was so taken by what he saw that he encouraged the owners to expand, and he gladly took the reigns when it came to turning their beloved McDonald’s into a franchise.
I will say that Michael Keaton does a fantastic job of portraying Ray Croc, it’s great seeing Keaton make a change for the better as there was a time not so long ago where it seemed as though his career was a lost cause. Unfortunately I can’t say any of the other actors did a lot for me, although they didn’t necessarily give a bad performance either. I think it was just a case of Ray Croc and his transformation as a person being such an integral part of the story, that Keaton just kind of overshadowed everyone else on screen.
The Founder what you basically have is a film that touches on the history of McDonald’s and whether you like them or not there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s now one of the biggest and most successful companies in the world. But more than anything as I said earlier, The Founder is at its core a character study. We get to see Ray’s obsession with success slowly unravel to the point of him being completely and utterly overrun with greed. It’s a story that’s been told time and time again, I mean straight from the get go you know exactly what kind of direction this film is heading in. I can’t imagine anyone declaring The Founder their favourite film of all time or anything, but it is very well done and really quite interesting in places. So John Lee Hancock’s latest gets a strong 7/10 from me.
