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Special Features
- Commentary with Director Richard Linklater and Writer Eric Schlosser
- Manufacturing Fast Food Nation Featurette
- The Meatrix Flash Animation Short
- The Meatrix II Flash Animation Short
- The Meatrix II 1/2 Flash Animation Short
- The Backwards Hamburger Flash Animation Short
- Photo Gallery
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
If you're still eating that fast-food burger after watching Super Size Me, you might not feel too hungry after watching Fast Food Nation, a fictionalized feature based on Eric Schlosser's bestselling nonfiction expose. Director Richard Linklater, who cowrote the screenplay with Schlosser, guides a topnotch ensemble cast through a peek behind the veil of how that Big Mac is born. Much of the film focuses on the illegal immigrants who work in the loosely regulated meat-packing industry, and actors including the luminous Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace), who plays a desperate but outraged laborer. Greg Kinnear also delivers a spot-on performance as a fast-food chain marketing manager, trying frantically to discover the source of stomach-turning contamination in the company's meat. Stories are woven in unexpected ways, and cameos by the likes of Kris Kristofferson, Patricia Arquette, and especially Bruce Willis keep the narrative fresh. The film has a point of view, but thanks to Linklater's deft touch, is never didactic. As Willis's character slyly says, "Most people don't like to be told what's best for them." Agreed, yet Fast Food Nation likely will help the viewer be more conscious of what's on the end of that fork. --A.T. Hurley
Extras from Fast Food Nation
 Fast Food Nation Arcade-Style Game |
Beyond Fast Food Nation
 Super Size Me |  Fast Food Nation (Paperback) |  Fast Food Nation: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture |
Stills from Fast Food Nation
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Product Description
Inspired by the incendiary New York Times bestseller that exposed the hidden facts behind America's fast food industry, Fast Food Nation combines an all-star ensemble cast lead by Greg Kinnear, Wilmer Valderrama and Avril Lavigne with riveting, interlocked human stories to serve up "a firecracker of a movie that jumps off the screen" (Rolling Stone). When a marketing executive (Kinnear) for the Mickey's burger chain is told there's a nasty secret ingredient in his latest culinary creation?"The Big One"? he heads for the ranches and slaughterhouses of Colorado to investigate...but discovers the truth a bit difficult to swallow.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
37 of 40 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Fast Food Nation is an excellent film about the very real and highly disturbing flaws that exist in a meat packing plant that provides the beef for Mickey's, a fictional fast food chain that doesn't exactly have its act together. Not only do we see how American lives are affected by this mess, we also see how desperate and sometimes frustrated, angry young people and illegal immigrants are drawn into this situation. The movie moves along at a good pace and the acting is terrific. The casting is excellent and this is one movie I must highly recommend even with a few hard to swallow (pardon the pun) scenes at the end of the "kill floor" at the meat processing plant.
When the action begins, we meet Don Anderson (Greg Kinnear) who is a high level executive at a fast food chain company. One day Don's boss informs him that some students at a university have found that there is waste matter in the meat. Don's boss orders him to the Colorado packing plant to investigate and try to find a way out of this mess.
We also meet desperate, frightened, yet sometimes angry Mexican immigrants who were so desperate for money that they illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the US. Two or three of them wind up working at the meat packing plant in Cody, Colorado. There is Raul (Wilmer Valderrama) and Sylvia (Catalina Sandino Moreno) and we also meet Coco (Ana Claudia Talancón). There are even young kids involved in the overall plot. There is Ashley Johnson who plays Amber, a cashier at Mickey's whose conscience bothers her about working there; and there is Paul Dano who turns in a stunning performance as Brian, a kid who spits in the food routinely and dreams up schemes to steal money from the fast food restaurant.
Of course, from here the plot can go almost anywhere. What happens when one of the Mexican men is injured--badly injured at the meat processing plant? How do Silvia and Coco get along when they get into the United States? What about Don Anderson--will he be able to find a graceful way out of this mess and make everything all right after all for Mickey's, the fast food chain? Watch the movie and find out!
We also get great smaller performances from highly talented actors including Kris Kristofferson and Bruce Willis. They make the movie all the more interesting and their acting is excellent, too.
The DVD comes with a documentary entitled "The Manufacturing of Fast Food Nation;" and there are four animated shorts as well. There is a commentary by director and co-author Richard Linklater and co-author Eric Schlosser as well.
Overall, I would recommend this film for grown ups--and those of them with strong stomachs at that. There is the issue of drug use in this film; and the scenes from the "kill floor" are not exactly going to help you sleep well tonight. However, if you can handle it, Fast Food Nation is a brilliant film that even allows its viewers to draw their own conclusions and opinions about these complicated topics.
When the action begins, we meet Don Anderson (Greg Kinnear) who is a high level executive at a fast food chain company. One day Don's boss informs him that some students at a university have found that there is waste matter in the meat. Don's boss orders him to the Colorado packing plant to investigate and try to find a way out of this mess.
We also meet desperate, frightened, yet sometimes angry Mexican immigrants who were so desperate for money that they illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the US. Two or three of them wind up working at the meat packing plant in Cody, Colorado. There is Raul (Wilmer Valderrama) and Sylvia (Catalina Sandino Moreno) and we also meet Coco (Ana Claudia Talancón). There are even young kids involved in the overall plot. There is Ashley Johnson who plays Amber, a cashier at Mickey's whose conscience bothers her about working there; and there is Paul Dano who turns in a stunning performance as Brian, a kid who spits in the food routinely and dreams up schemes to steal money from the fast food restaurant.
Of course, from here the plot can go almost anywhere. What happens when one of the Mexican men is injured--badly injured at the meat processing plant? How do Silvia and Coco get along when they get into the United States? What about Don Anderson--will he be able to find a graceful way out of this mess and make everything all right after all for Mickey's, the fast food chain? Watch the movie and find out!
We also get great smaller performances from highly talented actors including Kris Kristofferson and Bruce Willis. They make the movie all the more interesting and their acting is excellent, too.
The DVD comes with a documentary entitled "The Manufacturing of Fast Food Nation;" and there are four animated shorts as well. There is a commentary by director and co-author Richard Linklater and co-author Eric Schlosser as well.
Overall, I would recommend this film for grown ups--and those of them with strong stomachs at that. There is the issue of drug use in this film; and the scenes from the "kill floor" are not exactly going to help you sleep well tonight. However, if you can handle it, Fast Food Nation is a brilliant film that even allows its viewers to draw their own conclusions and opinions about these complicated topics.
52 of 62 people found the following review helpful
The movie follows three groups of people who are all affected by the fast food industry in some way: teenagers working at "Mickey's, illegal immigrants crossing into the United States and working at a meatpacking plant, and a man who works for the Mickey's company, in advertising. Though their paths only cross briefly if at all, the premise seems interesting. It shows the way the workers are treated, how someone can lose an arm or a leg in one of the machines, the "kill floor" and the graphic nature of cattle being slaughtered. Though it appears sanitary, there is a lot of "talk" from those that are connected to the place. Don Anderson ventures out to find the true story when his boss tells him that there was "fecal matter" discovered in the Mickey's meat. (Yet he still continues to eat it.)
All of this presented to you in an entertaining way makes the audience think. Yet there is something missing. Maybe it would have been better as a documentary. I think the reason that this movie was made as fiction, is so that it would reach more of an audience. Documentaries aren't viewed as often...though I would have loved to see it filmed that way.
I enjoyed the small parts by Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, Avril Lavigne, and Bruce Willis. The message comes through loud and clear: big business doesn't care about customers, it cares about the almighty dollar. The only thing that can be done is, you have to stop buying their food. Until then, I hope to see more movies like this opening our eyes about the fast food industry.
I think it could have been done a little bit better. It's almost as if there is too much ground to cover, and a 2 hour film just doesn't do it. With that said, it may still put you off of fast food for a while. Pass the organic beef, please.
All of this presented to you in an entertaining way makes the audience think. Yet there is something missing. Maybe it would have been better as a documentary. I think the reason that this movie was made as fiction, is so that it would reach more of an audience. Documentaries aren't viewed as often...though I would have loved to see it filmed that way.
I enjoyed the small parts by Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, Avril Lavigne, and Bruce Willis. The message comes through loud and clear: big business doesn't care about customers, it cares about the almighty dollar. The only thing that can be done is, you have to stop buying their food. Until then, I hope to see more movies like this opening our eyes about the fast food industry.
I think it could have been done a little bit better. It's almost as if there is too much ground to cover, and a 2 hour film just doesn't do it. With that said, it may still put you off of fast food for a while. Pass the organic beef, please.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
FAST FOOD NATION got such minimal response in the theater run that it seemed to go straight to DVD. The PR for the film was such that it appeared to be 'hilariously funny' (according to the DVD box cover) and as such might just provide a bit of humor after a tumultuous day of work. WRONG! This little film adapted by Richard Linklater from Eric Schlosser's frightening book is agonizingly biting and insightful: if you elect to watch it, be prepared for some ugly facts that may just produce insomnia.
Don Henderson (Greg Kinnear) is a marketing strategist for 'Mickey's', a fast food chain that is highly successful in selling millions of 'The Big One' (the comparisons to the McDonald's Big Mac are not subtle!) and discovers that the meat patties have been found to grow E. coli in the lab! On an expedition to explore the validity of this problem he travels to Cody, Colorado to visit the plant that produces the meat patties for the entire national chain. And so the plethora of storylines begin: the film examines the illegal immigrants from south of the border brought in by coyotes, treated like dirt, and given jobs 'cleaning' the meat plant and working the food chopping lines and eventually the killing and slaughtering of the cattle whose housing conditions are filth personified; the teenage workers who people the Mickey's chain are shown to be discontent and equally capable of planning robberies as they are of attempting to free the soon-to-be-burgers cattle; the callous corporate types who cover the facts in favor of increasing monetary gain; the plant workers who abuse the immigrant workers in every way possible; the utter boredom of the populace of Cody and the resultant pacified response to the 'big problems' that seethe through their town. Yes, it is an expose of corruption on many levels, but the film doesn't stop there.
Linklater and Schlosser are careful to include the individuals caught up in the mess and those individuals run the gamut from the immigrants who only want to find a better way of life and will subject themselves to horrors both in their trek across the border and the mistreatment in the factories to find it, to the honest men of the corporations, the ranchers, and the teenagers who try to make a stand against the many problems that overwhelm them. And that is what makes the film so moving: it personalizes rather than generalizing.
The cast is huge and without exception excellent: Greg Kinnear, Kris Kristofferson, Bruce Willis, Bobby Cannavale, Ashley Johnson, Paul Dano, Patricia Arquette, Luis Guzmán, Wilmer Valderrama, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Ana Claudia Talancón, Juan Carlos Serrán, Armando Hernández, Esai Morales, Ethan Hawke, Avril Lavigne...the cast just goes on and on. Be ready for some horrendously brutal scenes not only in the killing and cutting lines but in the sexual abuses equally as tragic. This is a film that should affect the viewer, and while it is overly long at almost two hours, it is as pungent a social comment as has been made. Grady Harp, March 07
Don Henderson (Greg Kinnear) is a marketing strategist for 'Mickey's', a fast food chain that is highly successful in selling millions of 'The Big One' (the comparisons to the McDonald's Big Mac are not subtle!) and discovers that the meat patties have been found to grow E. coli in the lab! On an expedition to explore the validity of this problem he travels to Cody, Colorado to visit the plant that produces the meat patties for the entire national chain. And so the plethora of storylines begin: the film examines the illegal immigrants from south of the border brought in by coyotes, treated like dirt, and given jobs 'cleaning' the meat plant and working the food chopping lines and eventually the killing and slaughtering of the cattle whose housing conditions are filth personified; the teenage workers who people the Mickey's chain are shown to be discontent and equally capable of planning robberies as they are of attempting to free the soon-to-be-burgers cattle; the callous corporate types who cover the facts in favor of increasing monetary gain; the plant workers who abuse the immigrant workers in every way possible; the utter boredom of the populace of Cody and the resultant pacified response to the 'big problems' that seethe through their town. Yes, it is an expose of corruption on many levels, but the film doesn't stop there.
Linklater and Schlosser are careful to include the individuals caught up in the mess and those individuals run the gamut from the immigrants who only want to find a better way of life and will subject themselves to horrors both in their trek across the border and the mistreatment in the factories to find it, to the honest men of the corporations, the ranchers, and the teenagers who try to make a stand against the many problems that overwhelm them. And that is what makes the film so moving: it personalizes rather than generalizing.
The cast is huge and without exception excellent: Greg Kinnear, Kris Kristofferson, Bruce Willis, Bobby Cannavale, Ashley Johnson, Paul Dano, Patricia Arquette, Luis Guzmán, Wilmer Valderrama, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Ana Claudia Talancón, Juan Carlos Serrán, Armando Hernández, Esai Morales, Ethan Hawke, Avril Lavigne...the cast just goes on and on. Be ready for some horrendously brutal scenes not only in the killing and cutting lines but in the sexual abuses equally as tragic. This is a film that should affect the viewer, and while it is overly long at almost two hours, it is as pungent a social comment as has been made. Grady Harp, March 07
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Mind blowing
The film is a mind blowing and informative work on fast food. It makes people aware of what they eat and that' s the most important thing. At some scenes I couldnt watch.
Published 8 days ago by PaolaD
Worth Watching Tough Material
I don't know that I would have watched FFN had it not starred Greg Kinnear. Tough to watch the harsh realities of the meat industry, but well executed.
Published 29 days ago by Lynn Foxx
Read the book instead.
I'll be honest and state that I simply assumed without reading the blurb, that this would be a documentary, maybe with a few dramaticized segments for visual effect, simply because... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Celestialabyss
Trys to Get a Point Across
Fast Food Nation is okay. Not great but okay. It shows the big picture of feed lots, illegal emigration, and corporate fast food and how they are intertwine with one another. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Pamela
Very disappointed!
I was hoping to use this to show in my high school health class - no such luck. There was unecessary sex that when previewing I couldn't figure out why it was even there! Read more
Published 3 months ago by Mary Beth Wimmer
fast food nation
I enjoyed the dvd film as it gave an eye opening view of what takes place in the process of fast food provision of their product, From the corn provided cows that should have been... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Bernard Haines
...In The Meat
That's pretty much it for that stink bomb of a movie.
What's even worst the cast the storyline & avril lavigne in this film.
Does anyone ever say no in hollywood ? Read more
What's even worst the cast the storyline & avril lavigne in this film.
Does anyone ever say no in hollywood ? Read more
Published 8 months ago by Chad Frey
Had to force myself to finish it
The acting is mediocre, the story drags and is all over the place. I really had no idea what it was supposed to be about, and it wasn't until the movie was over that I had to... Read more
Published 11 months ago by dlafga
Deeply Troubling, Important Narrative
This film dramatizes the many issues surrounding the changes in the food chain across time in the US. Read more
Published 11 months ago by WyomingNomad
Important, life-changing movie
It's been more than 6 months since I watched this movie, but there are parts of it that I will never forget. The "killing floor" scene will stay with me for the rest of my life. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Ann L. Detjen
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