The Founder

This review may contain spoilers!

This film doesn't always seem to know how best to present itself but ultimately what we get is a fairly interesting story about a greedy and corrupt man. I would give The Founder a 6.5/10.

The narrative takes a little while to get under way but once we meet the McDonalds brothers things start to get interesting; we're delivered a rather fascinating and relatively unknown origin story about how McDonalds really began. This is a great lead in to what makes the McDonalds brothers such likeable characters and you can appreciate their side of things throughout. Shortly after this the film finally begins delving into Kroc's rise to power, we see how he gets the franchise expanding and furthermore how he ruthlessly wrestles the business away from the McDonalds brothers. This journey is paralleled very well with Kroc's rather horrible treatment of his wife and ultimate change in temperament. The score for the film worked well having a very peppy go-getter edge to it at first but turning more and more sinister alongside Kroc's character development.

Michael Keaton, who played Ray Kroc, really had the sleazy salesmanship and manic persistence that made this protagonist/(antagonist?) so compelling; Keaton naturally led this role down a darker path until you could no longer empathise with him and he'd lost any redeeming quality which worked well to the film's advantage. Laura Dern, who played Ethel Kroc, had one of the most grounded characters within the cast; Dern's ability to present a relatable character made the hardships the role had to bear at the hands of Ray all the harder to watch.

However the best performance came from John Carroll Lynch, who played Mac McDonald. Lynch is a performer who I really enjoyed in his one episode appearance on The Walking Dead last season and he carries on impressing me in this film! Mac is by far the most likeable and charismatic of the whole cast of characters, providing a great burst of energy from his first appearance onwards. Lynch is an entertainer in this feature, a man who gets a lot of joy out of his business and working alongside his brother. However Lynch brings a more worrying side to his role, we see his character grow increasingly stressed and lose control as Kroc gets poised to take ownership of McDonalds. This is a fun character and a great performance from Lynch.

The film starts off pretty poorly, failing to establish it's main character well and providing a backstory about McDonalds that feels more like a well-concerted documentary interview than a biopic plot device. As the feature goes along Kroc is never really developed to a satisfying degree, instead we're treated to a rather simple view of his character and how that role develops. The story often seems split between Kroc and the McDonalds brothers with the narratives not really properly converging until the very end of the feature. One of the most disappointing aspects of the film is the sudden new love interest Kroc comes into contact with nearly two-thirds into the film, it's rushed in and a rather mediocre subplot. The cinematography is bland to say the least, there are moments where nice camera work has been attempted but it feels too artificial and forced. The editing is indecisive and has a serious effect on the film's pacing, it's hard to tell if quick snappy cuts and montages or slow fades and transitions would have worked better but using a mixture of all of the above wasn't a good idea.

Linda Cardellini, who played Joan Smith, was introduced too late into the film to have much impact; her role's relationship with Keaton felt very forced and out of place. Nick Offerman, who played Dick McDonald, just did not suit the dead serious number cruncher role; he's only ever convincing when he's trading happy sentiments with Lynch and sadly these scenes are few and far between. Patrick Wilson, who played Rollie Smith, is quite like Cardellini a performer who was added too late to the narrative; Wilson's sudden appearance onscreen had no impact and his role was very forgettable - only serving to introduce Cardellini. B.J. Novak, who played Harry Sonneborn, weirdly comes into the film in the last twenty minutes in a manner that could have been much better worked out; Novak just doesn't have any sort of edge to his character and he feels like a rather weak backing role to Keaton's lead. Mike Pniewski, who played Harvey Peltz, was quite a two-dimensional bank employee; his rather stiff approach to interacting with Keaton was nothing I hadn't seen in dozens of other films. Katie Kneeland, who played June Martino, was constantly being forced into a very background role; Kneeland's character had a ton of potential to bring out more of Keaton's character but was wasted by the feature's script.