Storyline
The true story of how Ray Kroc, a salesman from Illinois, met Mac and Dick McDonald, who were running a burger operation in 1950s Southern California. Kroc was impressed by the brothers’ speedy system of making the food and saw franchise potential. He maneuvered himself into a position to be able to pull the company from the brothers and create a billion-dollar empire.
Directors
Writers
Cast
Trailer
Reviews
80
Keaton plays Kroc as a man both pathetic and singularly possessed, cannily resisting lovability at every turn, while delivering the internalized self-help speak of his sales pitches with chillingly glib precision.
80
The extent of Kroc’s greed is The Founder’s unique playing card, and John Lee Hancock delivers it with a depressingly special sauce.
80
[Hancock] turns the unlikely subject of a fast-food chain into a quasi-religious satire, a parable of American striving and, ultimately, a study of artisanal integrity gradually caving in to commercial compromise.
75
Hancock is not the ideal fit for the queasy mix of fascination, sympathy, and discomfort that Siegel brought to movies like The Wrestler and Big Fan. The Founder is drier than either of those movies, which means it’s less funny but also has even less potential for sentiment.
67
If The Founder comes up short of providing a satisfactory dramatization of its main storyline, at least it peels back the veil with sufficient intrigue. Yet it still leaves the sour impression that Kroc got the last laugh. Even in this less-than-flattering portrait, he remains its brightest star.
Other Movies You Might Enjoy
Jan 1, Jan 2009Hooking Up (2009)
Sep 20, Sep 2013Generation Iron (2013)
Dec 10, Dec 2010The Tempest (2010)
Aug 13, Aug 2013Open Grave (2013)
Sep 3, Sep 2015Queen of the Desert (2015)
Oct 12, Oct 2018Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer (2018)
Jan 3, Jan 2014Jamesy Boy (2014)
Oct 24, Oct 1991Curly Sue (1991)