The Founder (2016)

★★★
Ray Kroc's venerable restaurant chain, like all the big-name retailers and food establishments that dot the landscape, started out as one store. It has endured periods of low profit, lawsuits, failed products (though I loved the Arch Deluxe), a critical documentary, a critical book and shifting eating habits to remain the go-to place for a quick meal and senior citizens who gravitate to the nearest store for coffee every morning. It has also inspired parody ("They got the Big Bac. We got the Big Mic.") and a sly pop culture reference courtesy of Quentin Tarantino. The Founder gives us the story of how Ray Kroc turned a lone hamburger stand in San Bernardino into the national brand known as McDonald's. Kroc's rise to the top of the restaurant food chain is an intriguing story so good it's taught in business schools. Director John Lee Hancock presents a struggling milkshake machine vendor in his 50s who finally sees an opportunity to find the success that has eluded him after years of effort. If he has to take someone else's concept and run with it, then so be it.

Hancock is largely fair with Ray Kroc. He gives him his due as the unstoppable force behind the national expansion of a restaurant chain. He had the vision and drive to push the Golden Arches as far as he could because he knew he was on to something. The movie also doesn't shy away from his less admirable qualities. A rift develops between the restauranteur and his partners, who developed the ideas that Kroc would eventually claim as his own. Kroc's portrait once appeared in most stores. He was the man behind the name McDonald, but now we see the story of the actual McDonald brothers and how they revolutionized fast food with their custom-made appliances and rigorous attention to detail. The real story of the initial meeting between Kroc and the McDonald brothers and their subsequent dealings differs enough from the movie's presentation that food historians will take notice, but Hancock provides enough of the sensibilities of his key players to give us a reasonable account of the rise of an American icon and everyone involved in it.

Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) is a traveling milk shake mixer machine salesman who has his curiosity piqued when two of his buyers in Southern California purchase more machines than he is accustomed to selling in a single transaction. Richard (Nick Offerman) and Maurice (John Carroll Lynch) McDonald developed a new concept for selling hamburgers quickly and efficiently. They structured their kitchen and trained their employees to serve as many hamburgers as possible without sacrificing taste or presentation. Kroc, enamored by what he sees, aggressively convinces the brothers to make him a partner and franchising agent back at his base of operations in the American Midwest. Kroc then embarks on a whirlwind campaign to recruit additional franchisees and open more McDonald's restaurants. Trouble is brewing at home. His marriage to Ethel (Laura Dern) slowly falls apart due to his intense commitment to his growing business, which includes mortgaging their home to gain capital. The brothers are also far too strict in allowing changes that sound sensible, like adding a furnace.

Director Hancock and writer Robert Siegel cover a lot of ground. Key figures are recognized for their contributions. Kroc meets Harry Sonneborn (B.J. Novak), who played an important role in Kroc's eventual acquisition of the business. There is a great scene between the two in which Harry explains how to make money from owning the land. The decision to buy and lease land to franchisees was a pivotal moment in the direction of Kroc's young company. It fuels the machine that would convince him to wrest control from the McDonald brothers, who only had modest goals for the restaurant that bears their name. June Martino (Kate Kneeland) is the bookkeeper who started out with Kroc's milkshake mixer company and would stay with him as an important ally as the company continued to grow. The brothers get their due. I grew up wondering who McDonald was other than the mascot Ronald McDonald. It was hard to get information like that in the days before the internet, but luckily knowledge of their existence is more mainstream than ever.

The Founder gives us the big picture of a company that dominates the world. I've visited McDonald's in the U.K., France, Germany, Hungary, Malta, Italy, Qatar, South Korea and Hong Kong. My hometown is Uniontown, Pennsylvania, where the Big Mac made its debut. It all had to start somewhere. The drama of bringing the Golden Arches to the masses is on display, though in a movie like this, I fully expect timelines to be condensed and actual events rearranged to give us the full range of emotions that would have built up over years. The subplot regarding a dispute over using milkshake powder instead of real milk is a bone of contention between the brothers and Ray Kroc, though in reality this was not a factor. What is clear is that Kroc wanted to keep expanding and build restaurants coast-to-coast, while the brothers were not so ambitious. This movie is about that ambition, but it wasn't without casualties. When the dust settled, tens of thousands of restaurants with their name spread all over the globe, and beyond their buyout check, the brothers received no royalties. Hancock felt he needed to settle a score on behalf of the McDonald brothers, and at that, The Founder succeeds.

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