The Founder (3/5 Stars)

This movie never really makes up its mind about what it thinks about Ray Croc, the man who franchised McDonald’s, a small family owned chain in Southern California, into a global company. Is he a hero or a villain in this story? Does he represent good things like ambition, persistence, and work ethic? Or does he represent bad things like bullying, cutting corners, and unfair dealing? Or is he half-good or half-bad? I actually think the last one may be closer to the truth, but the movie is ambiguous.

Now the creators of the movie may have felt that keeping the movie ambiguous is a way of portraying Ray Croc in a half-good/half-bad way. But saying nothing about either thing isn’t the same about saying something about both things. “The Founder” would have been a much better movie if its creators were more insistent on having more of a point of view. A much better movie with a very similar plot is David Fincher’s great movie “The Social Network.” That too told the story of a small business that grew into a giant and the collateral damage of early partners it left in its wake. That movie is superior to this one because it was explained to the audience why it was necessary that the collateral partners were pushed aside and explained why that wasn't completely fair, whereas “The Founder” never quite makes the argument that Ray Croc was wrong in how he expanded McDonald’s (he is shown maintaining a great product and giving business opportunites to many hardworking normal people) and never quite makes the argument that Ray Croc was right in how he cut out the original founders, the McDonald’s brothers (Ray Croc’s real estate deals are shown in a slippery manner and the movie blatantly shows the infamous hand shake deal that courts later said couldn’t be proved.)

The lynchpin of the whole thing was a milkshake that didn’t need a freezer. It was an insta-mix. You put it into a glass of cold water and stirred it for a couple minutes. The McDonald’s brothers (played by the perfectly cast Nick Offerman and John Carrol Lynch) balk at this even though Ray Croc and all the other franchisees prove that it will save them a lot of money. What does the movie think? Did the McDonald’s brothers have the right to stop all the other franchisees from saving money with insta-milkshakes? Are the original standards of McDonald’s sacrosanct and not worth the expansion of the franchise? This could be clearer.

Another thing mixed up in this could be clearer. Ray Croc was married to a woman who didn’t share his ambitions. The woman who came up with the Insta-milkshake became his later wife after he divorced the first one. What does the movie think about this? It kind of waffles here too. It is under the impression that the first divorce is not a good thing. But it can’t admit (because I don’t think the evidence is there) that the second marriage was a bad thing. When I watched the “Social Network,” I felt it was making an argument that the company, Facebook, and its success was important enough to warrant hurt feelings and disloyalty to members that weren’t on board with the program of making it the biggest and best thing ever. “The Founder” is in the same position, but doesn’t make the argument. I’m not entirely sure what “The Founder” thinks of McDonald’s. Does it think it should have stayed in San Bernadino? Or does it think it should have expanded across the world? This is an important question because Ray Croc was responsible for the second scenario and he could not have done it with the McDonald’s brothers as his business partners.

Ray Croc is played by Michael Keaton, one of those actors that is sort of beyond definition. He looks white-bread neutral and yet the man has played Beetlejuice, Batman, Birdman, and a police sergeant that moonlights at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and quotes TLC lyrics. He is an off-kilter surreal actor playing in a boring white man’s body. He is perfect for Ray Croc, whose weird enthusiasm and persistence, renders him borderline uncanny valley. That is he looks human but there is something not quite right. Like L. Ron Hubbard, he seems to have brainwashed himself. Early scene of him as a traveling milk-shake salesman has him alone in his hotel room listening to self-motivation records on a loop. It would be nice if the movie had an opinion about that.

The first McDonald’s in San Bernadino looks and feels like a great restaurant. In fact, it reminds me of the best fast food restaurant I’ve ever been to: In-N-Out. The menu is only burgers, fries, and soda/shakes. The quality of the food is great. The people working there are clean cut and well paid. As a mainly Southern California restaurant, the restaurant is airy and people can easily eat outside. Contrast this with your average McDonald’s today. A depressing conglomeration of colors and menu options, all of which contain substandard ingredients, and a general aura of uncleanliness confined in the commercial space of a crowded urban area (at least in NYC). Of course we don’t see what McDonald’s became in “The Founder,” and I really don’t know what the makers feel about what happened.