After first hearing about the release of The Founder in early 2016 and watching the trailer, I immediately put Michael Keaton in the running for a Best Actor nomination. Keaton has given noteworthy performances in his recent roles in the last two Best Picture winners: Birdman and Spotlight making him deserving of Oscar recognition. His role in The Founder is no different.
As the year progressed, the release date moved around more often than Eli Manning throws interceptions during New York Giants football games. Was the film that bad? Was Keaton terrible in the film? After screening The Founder this past weekend, I am dumbfounded by The Weinstein Company’s lack of push for Michael Keaton in the Best Actor category. The Founder is a showcase for Keaton as he continues his streak of outstanding performances and film choices.
Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc
The Founder is based on the true story of Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton), a struggling salesman from Illinois who was failing miserably at selling milkshake machines. On a phone call with his secretary, he was told that 6 machines had been sold. Shocked by the sale, he decided to take a trip to meet the buyers Mac (John Carroll Lynch) and Dick McDonald (Nick Offerman), who were running a burger joint in 1950s Southern California known by everyone today as McDonald’s. Kroc was impressed by the brothers’ speedy system of making the food and saw the potential to franchise the fast food operation. The film chronicles Kroc’s maneuvering into a position to be able to pull the company out from under the brothers, creating a multi-billion dollar empire.
The Founder channels The Social Network in its portrayal of its lead. As with Mark Zuckerberg’s portrayal by Jessie Eisenberg, Ray Kroc in The Founder is an anti-hero, chasing the American Dream with no concern about who he steps on in the process to become successful. Another similarity is how Kroc takes credit for the idea of McDonald’s when the franchises expand and the brand gains momentum across the country. The Social Network showed how Zuckerberg ran with the Winklevoss brothers idea of the Harvard Connection. Zuckerberg eventually creates The Facebook and turning it into the social networking giant it is today just as Kroc made McDonald’s what it is.
The Founder showcases exactly how McDonald’s was never Kroc’s idea, yet Kroc’s persistence leads him to make his dreams happen in making the company larger than life. Shown through the exceptional performance of Keaton, who once again steals the show and brings his Keaton-esque charm to the big screen. Kroc is nothing short of a scumbag, but Keaton’s performance makes it difficult at times to not to root for him. Essentially, The Founder is a lesson on how to succeed in business, for better or for worse.
Left: Nick Offerman as Dick McDonald | Right: John Caroll Lynch as Maurice “Mac” MacDonald
John Caroll Lynch and Nick Offerman bring a sadness to their portrayal of the McDonald brothers. Lynch, best known for his most recent work as Twisty the clown on American Horror Story, is the gullible brother who puts full trust into Kroc, never doubting his intentions until it’s too late. Offerman is the ying to Lynch’s yang, cynical and never fully trusting of Kroc. They worked well as a dynamic duo in the film providing solid chemistry that when the finale arrives, it is difficult not to feel bad for them. Two men who are trying to achieve their dreams, who eventually fall victim to Kroc due to their lack of vision and risk, never seeing the same potential Kroc saw in the company.
While the film is informative and damn entertaining, it is not without its flaws. At times, the film feels that is out of context, filling in spaces with archival footage and an over-reliance on montages to speed the story along. Regardless of that, The Founder is a great look at the “Golden Arches” everyone knows and love, but until this film, hardly knew how they got there.
Reel Talk gives The Founder 3 reels
