I’ve been a fan of Michael Keaton ever since I first saw him as Batman many years ago. His acting has considerably improved throughout recent years and he’s coming out with some great films and roles lately. Birdman is currently my favourite film of his, but The Founder proved to be a very interesting and insightful cinematic experience. The Founder also stars Nick Offerman, John Carroll Lynch, Laura Dern, Linda Cardellini, Patrick Wilson and B.J Novak.
The Founder is all about Ray Kroc who in real life founded the very popular and well known restaurant, McDonald’s. The film tells the story of Ray Croc’s life before McDonald’s and after McDonald’s. It’s a very interesting business film all about growing a company, having ambition, having vision and being aggressive enough to see it all come together and become successful. I simply love these types of films and I especially love them when the main character is ruthless enough to take what they want and know how to get what they want.
I wouldn’t go as far as to say that this movie is inspiring and a lot of people will want to be more like Ray Croc in the future as he comes across in my view as slightly mean. But I would say that it does provide a good lesson about the world and the type of characters that are out there that someone can encounter and in my view, The Founder was a very interesting and eye opening experience. Not only because it told us the origin story of America’s greatest food chain, but because it also had such an interesting character for us to watch on screen. I enjoyed every moment of it all.
The actors all do a fine job. It’s mainly Michael Keaton who carries the film experience and while he does have a funny kind of accent, he does a great job with Ray Croc. The Founder does seem quite different to much of what Michael Keaton has done in the past, however I think he was perfect for the role of Ray Croc. I quite enjoyed B.J. Novak in this one, although he’s not in it heaps, the parts of the film he was in are some of the more memorable parts of the film.
The Founder comes directed by John Lee Hancock (Saving Mr. Banks) who I think did a great job with a film that occurs over quite a few years. However at times it seemed certain sections of Ray Croc’s life happened quite quickly. It took a long time for him to get to work at McDonald’s after watching him for so long selling machines to hamburger chains (which was his previous job). But then all of a sudden, it felt quick for us to get to the point of the McDonald’s chain being quite large. Certain points of the film seemed quicker than others to me. But it’s still very good and I only mention it because I felt like I would have been happy for it to go for another half an hour if it needed to.
Overall The Founder was a great experience at the cinema. It’s a interesting film about the founder of McDonald’s, Ray Croc. The film gives us a glimpse of his life and what type of person he was and how McDonald’s started to become a really big business which still dominates in the world today. If you love movies centred around tough business people who follow their vision for their business and their dream and do whatever it takes to make it happen, then this movie is something for you. The Founder also has a great performance from Michael Keaton, who lately always seems to be quite impressive to watch at the cinema.
