Film review: The Founder is a fascinating account of how one man turned McDonald’s into a phenomenon

The Founder

Director: John Lee Hancock

Starring: Michael Keaton, Nick Offerman, John Carroll Lynch, Patrick Wilson, Laura Dern

Four stars

The last time McDonald's was the subject of a film, the result was Morgan Spurlock's documentary Super Size Me – a film that did huge damage to the PR image of the world's most successful fast-food empire.

It is hard to imagine that business biopic The Founder, which tells a story that is now 70 years old, will do much to spruce up that image.

John Lee Hancock’s film tells how the burger chain grew to become a global phenomenon, all thanks to the vision of one man, Ray Kroc.

Played by Michael Keaton – in a role that arguably outshines his Oscar-nominated work as a washed-up actor in 2014's Birdman – Kroc is the very embodiment of the American dream: ambitious, relentless and ruthless.

There can be no doubt that he spread the gospel according to McDonald’s – but is he “the founder”? That is a label that would undoubtedly gnaw away at the McDonald brothers, Richard and Maurice, who turned their simple hot-dog stand into a successful streamlined burger joint in San Bernardino, California.

As Hancock’s film makes abundantly clear, it was Dick and Mac (Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch) who came up with the concept of an assembly-line kitchen to speed up the process of putting the food together. They simplified the menu to offer just burgers, fries, milkshakes and apple pies. They even came up with the iconic golden arches – that welcoming yellow sign that symbolises McDonald’s restaurants the world over.

What they did not do was evolve their great idea into a world-beating fast-food franchise.

Scripted by Robert D Siegel, who wrote Darren Aronofsky's marvellous study of failure The Wrestler, The Founder will appeal to anyone who enjoyed The Social Network. While that David Fincher-directed movie dealt with the formation of social-media site Facebook, a phenomenon that changed the way we communicate, it was really about the Machiavellian power-plays between Mark Zuckerberg and co-founder Eduardo Saverin.

Likewise, Siegel’s script about the formation of a business that changed the eating habits of much of the world, deals with similar behind-the-scenes shenanigans.

If it is a movie of winners and losers, it is also the sort of divisive story that will sort its audience into two camps. Some will feel for Dick and Mac, the small-time siblings with limited ambitions, lacking the know-how to take McDonald’s to the next level.

Others will champion the entrepreneurial Kroc, a travelling salesman who meets the brothers while selling milkshake machines. Inspired by their diner, he petitions the wary brothers to let him help expand the business. They agree, but only if they have final approval on all decisions.

What follows is a fascinating account of how Kroc gradually built the chain – and his own power – through alliances, innovations – and plain old scheming. Along the way, he neglects his wife (Laura Dern) and sets his sights on a second spouse (Linda Cardellini) in much the same way as he does the McDonald brothers’ diner. Life for Kroc, it seems, is all about the thrill of the chase and acquisitions – something he pursues relentlessly. He is the sort of man you imagine US president elect Donald Trump heralding as a hero.

With fine performances in support – Lynch and Parks and Recreation’s Offerman are fantastic as the brothers seemingly powerless to stop Kroc from steamrollering their business – this marks a change of direction for director Hancock.

His recent work, such as Saving Mr Banks and Oscar-winner The Blind Side, has been coated in pure sugar – The Founder is much more involving and substantial.

You will never look at a Big Mac quite the same way again.

• The Founder is in cinemas on Thursday, January 5