Do you want lies with that?
The Big One is the latest burger from fast-food chain Mickey's and it's shaping up to be their most successful product yet. However, there's something strange in the meat. Company man Don Henderson (Greg Kinnear) is sent to investigate the meat packing plant in Cody, Colorado where "The Big One" comes from.
Raul (Wilmer Valderrama), Coco (Ana Claudia Talancón) and Sylvia (Catalina Sandino Moreno) are also new to Cody. Having illegally crossed the border from Mexico, they search for the American dream and wind up as new workers at the same meat-packing plant. The clean and efficient plant that Don is shown bears little relation to what goes on behind the scenes. Workers are as ruthlessly exploited as the cattle they carve up and process.
School kid Amber (Ashley Johnson) works in the local outlet of Mickey's to help pay her mother's bills and hopefully save enough to get the hell out of town. Seeing the real legacy of fast-food chains like Mickey's, Amber and her friends have their own plan about how to stop America and the world becoming fast food nations.
Special Agent Matti
The trouble with capitalism is that it is, as practised today, a parasite. Capitalism exists solely for the production of capital. Once it is allowed to rage unfettered (the free market economy), it consumes more and more of the host society until there is nothing left. Like many a virus, it cares nothing for killing the host as long as it gets to pass on its genes (memes). Fast food chains are the perfect example of the capitalist creed: charge more money for less product.
Meanwhile, Fast food nation plays a lot like Traffic, not just because it's an ensemble film with Mexicans but because you are left with an enduring sense of despair. Not to mention a bad taste in your mouth.
M (Moderate sex scenes, moderate themes, moderate coarse language, contains animal slaughter)
113 minutes (1:53 hours)
Film: 26 October 2006
