From Beetlejuice to Batman to Birdman to Burger Man, Michael Keaton is on a roll, an open sesame to Oscar contention with a big, beefy performance as Ray Kroc, the Big Mac and French Fries franchise robber baron.
Kroc was a travelling salesman caught up in the American Dream of succeeding. It was a dream that was receding. Until a chance lunch stop at a hamburger joint.
Run by bothers Dick and Mac McDonald it was a phenomenon of clockwork cuisine. Nick had already devised and mastered the time and motion marvel that made the McDonald’s conveyor belt burger a superior fast food operation and Kroc was impressed. He suggested franchise, but the boys had already tried that and failed because Nick wanted absolute control and could not guarantee it outside his personal fiefdom of patties and fries.
For a conglomerate that eventually spear headed the super size me mentality, the brothers were happy to place quality over quantity. They were the true pioneers to what became a global mass feeder. They may have founded the restaurant but it was Kroc who founded the enterprise.
Kroc was a crook born of desperation to see his final pitch at golden success at the foot of the golden arches. Hitting middle age, his need for speed collided with his greed for need, breaking contracts, hearts and ground in equal measure. A ground breaker literally and figuratively, he bought up the real estate that the burger joints were built on. Ground earth was the birth of the ground beef empire as we know and loathe or love today.
Writer Robert D. Siegel who wrote The Wrestler a few years back has scripted a quintessential story of capitalism and free enterprise, the aspirational that trumps the inspirational, the morally bankrupt philosophy of whatever it takes, as trust and decency become collateral damage in a blitzkreig of business skullduggery.
Director John Lee Hancock, helmer of The Blind Side and Saving Mr Banks, has crafted his best film yet, visually splendid, briskly paced and with beautifully calibrated performances from every single cast member.
Keaton as Kroc is king, presenting a character of kaleidoscopic intricacy. There is much to admire in his portrayal of ambition and determination, and also much to despise in his dishonesty and cheating.
Laura Dern, always a pleasure, plays his first wife, Ethel, a supportive spouse, but too staid and safe for the success spurred Ray. Linda Cardellini as his second wife has more of the Lady Macbeth that helps him usurp the McDonald Brothers and claim the crown and global golden arches.
As the Brothers McDonald, Nick Offerman as Dick and John Carroll Lynch as Mac are crack cack, a beautifully realised sibling partnership, a double act more satisfying than a double stack.
Keaton has starred in the last two consecutive films to win Best Picture Oscar. It is not beyond contention that he could make it a hat trick. THE FOUNDER is the first great film of the Trump era. Would you like lies with that?!