Founder * * * *

  

You want fries with that?  'Course you do.

Whether you like or hate the McDonald product it has to be acknowledged that a brand so ubiquitous is going to make a fascinating story. And it is.  Though, I think most people are aware that Mcdonald's was founded in the 1950’s by a milk shake machine salesperson named Ray Kroc.

  Founder doesn’t concern itself with Kroc’s childhood or family background, other than his strained relationship with his wife.

   It commences with him discovering the McDonald Hamburger Restaurant in California, run by the McDonald brothers. As a milk shake machine salesperson Kroc had seen every kind of hamburger and fast food joint, but he’d never seen anything like McDonald's.  Huge queues but hardly any waiting.  The hamburgers were preempted, and the choice of hamburger you can have was made by McDonald, not by the customer.  

   Excited and enthused by what he saw, Ray Kroc badgered the McDonald brothers into franchising the concept. They initially resisted but Kroc’s persistence won out.

  This is not an altogether flattering portrait of Kroc and I admire the film for that. He had the philosophy of “nice guys finish last” and he frequently wasn’t nice, especially as he became more successful.

   From the conversations we witness with his frustrated wife it was clear he’d had a lifetime of big ideas.  Now in his fifties, they were doing okay (just); the house was paid off and she didn’t want anymore grand plans.  But Ray Kroc was Ray Kroc and coming up with money making ideas was what he did - and what he was.  

   It shows the risks that Kroc took - and they were significant and it shows how Kroc met Harry Sonneborn who educated him that he was actually in the Real Estate business, not the hamburger business. McDonald’s is successful because they own every block of land a McDonald franchise sits upon. There is a beautifully telling scene as Kroc walks onto a vacant lot, picks up the dirt and lets it run through his fingers.  

   This is a very full film.  There are not many key points in Krocs ascension they have overlooked including the shameless way he treated his divorced wife and the original McDonald brothers.

   Founder is a good, highly entertaining biography. The recreation of the 50’s is visually flawless.  All performances are well played, especially Michael Keaton in the main role.