Z/Web

I didn’t know much about this except it was based on the non-fiction best-seller. I thought it might be a little like Super Size Me with some drama thrown in. It turned out the whole film is fiction, with overlapping tales of various characters involved in the fast food industry. We meet a corporate executive who’s trying to find the truth about the meat his restaurants serve. We follow several Mexicans as they cross the border and get jobs at the dangerous meat packing plant. There’s a girl working at the fast food place who gets involved with environmentalists protesting the company’s practices. It’s an interesting ride, and much of it is very well done. I liked the way many controversial topics were brought up in the course of the film without making it seem like preaching or point-raising. Most of the time it felt natural and just part of the stories. Unfortunately, there isn’t much balance in the film. There are occasional comments from characters who are pro-fast food, but the film portrays them as crazy nuts or paid whores of the industry. But mostly the film is simply depressing: it’s just scene after scene of horror. For instance, the sympathetic Mexican worker is injured on the job and the corporate bosses claim his blood tested positive for drugs so they won’t pay medical claims, his wife has to prostitute herself to the Mexican manager to get a better-paying job at the plant, etc. There’s just no hope shown, not an inkling of light anywhere, and that not only makes it a frustrating movie to watch, it makes the film’s points seem more like propaganda. Our minds basically just go, “It can’t really be this bad!” It could very well be that bad or worse — I have no idea. But by presenting only one radical perspective, the film invites doubt. In the end, while I found the story entertaining and a few of the points important, I didn’t appreciate the film’s overt political nature.