Inspired by Mac and Dick McDonald, a struggling salesman from Illinois maneuvers himself into a position to be able to pull the company from the brothers and create a multi-billion dollar empire.
Its omissions and elisions are the result not of natural narrative contours but of open choices, gaping holes, psychological wounds that a filmmaker displays all the more via the elaborate efforts at concealment ...
It probably would have had more impact if it had been made four or five decades ago, when McDonald's was not yet an icon of "crude mercantilism" feared by its original owners. [Full review in Spanish]
The Founder features an engrossing tale of the rise of a fast-food empire, an exceptional cast that's at the top of their game, and a marvelous screenplay that lays out these events in all of their intriguing, gritty detail.
A remarkable example that the American dream is sometimes possible, although there must be lies, betrayal, robberies, and some other things on the way. [Full review in Spanish]
John Lee Hancock serves up a biopic of McDonald's king Ray Kroc that is not unlike the restaurant's product: precisely prepared, brightly packaged, and uncomplicated in its appeal. Or at least, that's how it goes down much of the time.
Keaton is fascinating as Kroc, a bad guy who embodies the American Dream - a man who isn't necessarily the best or most talented but who's willing to step on anyone to get ahead.
