The Founder

11 Sept

McDonald’s, the most recognised catering company in the world, owes its fame to one man, it says here.

The McDonald brothers, Maurice and Richard, were doing OK with their hamburger joint in 1950s San Bernardino, California, until one day along came travelling salesman Ray Kroc who thought they could do better by franchising their business. Kroc had been a paper cup salesman, a musician and a radio DJ before finding his niche in business. He came across the McDonald brothers while trying to push his milkshake mixer. Having visited mostly terrible burger bars, Kroc was impressed by the quality and efficiency of the McDonalds’ operation. He decided he had to have a part of it for himself.

Although he subsequently helped turn McDonald’s into what became a worldwide success, he was not above thinking about number one and he makes more out of the franchise than the two innocent brothers who might easily have made a comfortable living out of their family concern, albeit not on a global scale, and without compromising their own high standards. In the film Michael Keaton imbues the part of Kroc with an avid intensity, a man driven by his own unswerving ambition to succeed. It’s a love-hate relationship between both him and the brothers and between Kroc and us in the audience too.

If it is all true, then John Lee Hancock has made a fascinating character study of a megalomaniacal figure who just had to make it big, come what may, and if necessary at the expense of his business partners and his family, too. Laura Dern as Kroc’s wife gets the fuzzy end of the sesame bun by having a conman for a partner. You may love Ray, you may hate him, but the point is was he really a Kroc of gold when it came to the McDonald’s franchise? As for The Founder… the word has more than one meaning. It can be someone who invents something good or bad, a creator, or it can mean total collapse. Maybe Kroc was a bit of both.

MICHAEL DARVELL

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

Dir John Lee Hancock, Pro Don Handfield, Parry Creedon, Jeremy Renner, Aaron Ryder and Michael Sledd, Screenplay Robert D. Siegel, Ph John Schwartzman, Pro Des Michael Corenblith, Ed Robert Frazen, Music Carter Burwell, Costumes Daniel Orlandi.

The Weinstein Company/FilmNation Entertainment/The Combine/Faliro House Productions-StudioCanal.
115 mins. USA. 2016. Rel: 17 February 2017. Cert. 12A.

★★★½

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

The Founder

The Forty-Year-Old Version

Foxcatcher