FilmNation Entertainment, The Weinstein Company, Faliro House Productions,

Michael Keaton, Nick Offerman, John Carroll Lynch, Linda Cardellini, Patrick Wilson, B.J. Novak, Laura Dern

Dick McDonald (Nick Offerman) and Mac McDonald (John Carroll Lynch) were brothers who opened a drive in restaurant in San Bernardino, California. They were struggling with all the problems that come with Drive Ins, with the clientele and the car hops themselves, and the difficulty of keeping each of the menu orders straight. But the brothers came up with an idea they called Speedee Service where they trimmed down the menu to just Hamburgers, Fries, Milkshakes, and Soda, nothing else, but also a redesigned kitchen that allowed them to fill orders at the walk up window in about 30 seconds. Additionally they did away with all the silverware and dishes, and packaged everything in disposable wrappers in a bag designed to be totally disposable. Meanwhile Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) was a salesman, struggling to eke out a living selling milkshake blenders on the road. But he was a big dreamer, and when he heard of the success of the McDonald brothers, he set out to see it for himself. They made a tenuous partnership and struggled to bring to fruition Kroc’s vision of the largest franchise in history, with a restaurant in every town, the McDonalds we know today. This docudrama tells the story of the recognized franchise king Ray Kroc from the eyes of the two brothers who actually invented the system.

The main character all are excellent actors. Michael Keaton did an excellent job as did Nick and John as the McDonald Brothers. Laura Dern also brought a lot to the movie with her role as Ray’s wife. She added quite a bit to the story as her role is very complex, but but she pulled it off very well. This is one of the better docudrama’s I have seen in a long time. I think most everyone is aware that Ray Kroc was the founder of McDonalds, but few people know the background of where the golden arches came from, originally. This movie is rather interesting because of the unusual path it took. Everyone wanted to tell the story of the McDonald brothers and how Ray Kroc ran over them with a steam roller, but this producer, director, and screen writer realized early on that Ray Kroc is the center of the film, and that it’s not all black and white. Without taking sides, it’s told from the McDonald Brothers point of view, but as you go through the film, there are no heroes and not bad guys, really. Everything is really grey as we come to understand how things happened the way they had to do. I highly recommend this film as I found it very well made, well told, and quite interesting. Give it a shot.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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    Ed's Review Dot Com » Movie Review – Gold (2016) {R} said

    May 29 2017 @ 11:00 am

    […] of to McConaughey’s performance in this docudrama is Michael Keaton’s performance in The Founder. There are a lot of similarities in the stories, at least as far as the performances of the two […]

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