Just Films & That is a podcast that celebrates underrated, underseen and underappreciated films. In this episode, we take a look at The Founder from 2016. This film was chosen by one of our guests on the podcast, Kevin Gootee. It tells the true story of how fast food giant McDonald’s came to be what it is today. The film barely made back its budget in revenue, and was pretty much completely ignored when it came to awards season. And quite frankly, we just don’t understand why. This movie is an absolute masterclass in filmmaking, expertly executing cinematic techniques to draw you in and keep you engaged throughout. You can listen to the full episode on The Founder now, wherever you get your podcasts.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 There should be McDonald's everywhere. Franchise the damn thing. Mr. Krug. Franchise. Franchise.
00:06 Franchise. So the founder from 2016 then. So for those of you who haven't seen this,
00:11 this is the story of how McDonald's came to be what it is today. Starting out from a little
00:16 restaurant, started by two brothers, becoming one of the biggest companies in the world
00:21 that stars Michael Keaton, amongst others. We had a guest on from America called Kevin
00:25 Goatee who suggested it because he thinks it's underrated and underseen. Yeah, so Kevin's
00:30 consensus was he just generally thought that this film was underappreciated, that no one
00:35 really paid attention to it when it came to awards time. So at the time of recording,
00:39 over on IMDb, it gets a 7.2 out of 10. And then over on Rotten Tomatoes, the critics
00:45 give it 80%. And then the audience give it 82%, which are quite good scores. But this
00:51 is quite a terrific film. I had seen this one before, so I was really excited when he
00:55 chose it. This is a story I feel that is just so brilliantly told. So a lot of the film
01:01 is essentially just guys in suits having conversations about businesses, about franchises, about
01:07 that sort of thing. So how do you make that interesting and how do you get your audience
01:11 to engage? And the filmmakers just absolutely nail it from things like cinematic techniques
01:16 to the excellent script writing, and of course, some fantastic performances in there. I'm
01:20 a big fan of Michael Keaton anyway, and he is phenomenal in this. He just absolutely
01:25 nails the character of Ray Kroc, and he goes from being our hero to a little bit of a villain.
01:30 But all the while, you're still kind of rooting for him, even though sometimes his intentions
01:34 aren't pure. And he does seem to be this sort of capitalist, crazed, money hungry type of
01:38 guy. But you're so enthralled by him. Business is war. It's dog eat dog, rat eat rat. I want
01:44 to take the future. I want to win. I just think it's a really well structured and well
01:50 executed piece of storytelling. I like biopics. I like true to life stories. I like learning
01:55 about real events. And this is a really good exploration in this film of the ability of
02:01 money and ambition to have the power to sort of corrupt. And I think it's really clever
02:07 in the way it does it. Was there anything you didn't like about it?
02:11 The main offender in this for me was that there were quite a few conveniences. Now,
02:15 I know that this just comes with the territory when you're retelling something that did actually
02:19 happen because there's so much information that you need to get in there and you want
02:23 to make sure that you're getting all that across to the audience. But there were some
02:26 moments that just did not feel authentic at all and didn't feel like real conversation,
02:30 but that just had to happen to move the story along and to get us from, you know, from A
02:34 to B to C to D and so on and so forth. And I feel like those moments really stood out
02:38 because the script was so sophisticated and so brilliant in so many other ways. So when
02:43 you had these moments, they were just quite obvious. And it did just throw me out the
02:47 film a little bit. And I thought, oh, well, no one would ever really speak like that.
02:50 But that was really it, to be honest. And overall, I did think it was a very positive
02:54 viewing experience.
02:55 In the glorious name of McDonald's, I had to have it.
02:59 You don't have it.
03:01 You sure about that?
03:02 [WHOOSH]