If Morgan Spurlock’s gross-out documentary Super Size Me exposed the dangers of the McDonald’s Big Mac, The Founder is the fast-food franchise’s wholesome origin story. An attempt to recast its Henry Ford-style speedy system and memorable golden arches as hallmarks of all-American decency (and capitalist efficiency), John Lee Hancock’s bland biopic offers a sanitised and sympathetic take on the burger chain’s beginnings and the man who turned it into a multimillion-dollar enterprise.
Michael Keaton stars as Ray Croc, a persistent, Machiavellian salesman weaned on self-help tapes, who rebranded and franchised the San Bernardino burger bar started in 1940 by brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald (Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch respectively). “Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent,” says Keaton’s Croc to the McDonalds, though the opposite seems to be the film’s ominous kernel of truth.
