No one will come away from this movie respecting Ray Kroc, but in the hands of John Lee Hancock, no one will be pushed to excessively question capitalism either.
The inherent corruption and abondon of capitalism personified into one slimy capitalist, persistent in his attempt for outright control of another’s business. He robs the community of one of their unifying locations, a location to give locals a sense of identity within a culture (as much ‘culture’ as the frankenstein that is American society can have), and morphs into a vile, all-consuming international empire built on dishonesty; a preposterously sized vacuum that filters straight to his and his buddies’ pockets, meanwhile those under him scrape off what they’re allowed to off the greasy, salty restaurant floor.
Regretfully, The Founder fails to be truly brilliant in its anti-capitalist messaging; for one, while it doesn’t exactly portray the events like an exception to the rule (because this so clearly, so obviously is the rule), it still doesn’t comment on the inherently exploitative realities of capitalism, and, as such, falls flat as an allegory. Additionally, the portrait painted of our small business holders is very one-dimensionally innocent, and mainly thought of as noble and deserving of control over their business because of how ‘hard-working’ and ‘special’ they are for creating a unique product, as though other such local businesses shouldn’t have justice brought to them for their equal mistreatment by other explotive parties (their nobility is simultaneously rooted in their resolute insistence to deny materialist seductions, so it isn’t completely fargone, but the semi-objectivist reasoning for it is still irksome).
At a late point in the film, the screenplay ineffectually tries to make you feel sympathy for the character of Ray Kroc by making him show a glimmer of regret for his exploitation, a truly disgusting moment. Capitalists deserve no sympathy in the presence of their unacknowledged legal fraud, especially one that was once a victim of its predatory bloodsucking. It should always be noted what good lies in that which is evil, but in a film that has done nothing but build up a sociopathic caricature of the evils of commercialiam, I expect consistent judgment in his direction.
It could also not be more formulaic if it tried, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. What better movie to follow the Hollywood formula than one about the systemized efficiency of early fast food?
