Fast Forward to...Fast Food Nation

I don't know if I'll ever eat a fast food hamburger again. Or any other hamburger, for that matter. Richard Linklater's movie explores all the grease-encrusted--and, potentially, dung-contaminated?--crevices that go into the creation of the hypothetical Mickey's Big One. It falls upon a vice-president for marketing, as played in total seriousness by Greg Kinnear, to visit the meat-processing and packing plant in Cody, Colorado that happens to be the birthplace of all of these patties. He's shown the pretty stuff--all the stainless steel and workers in spotless white uniforms. However, he doesn't get to discuss conditions with these workers, many of whom are Mexican illegal aliens who are carted in by the vanload from the other side of the border; who are abused by their own Latino bosses; who regularly lose fingers or entire limbs due to the dangers involved in earning so much more than they did in their homeland. Instead, he manages to discuss the problem with an old rancher (Kris Kristofferson); and with a meat buyer (Bruce Willis) who pretty much tells him to live with it. The movie has various sub-plots that are tied together by this self-same Big One: new employees making do, and making the best (and/or worst) out of their new life in America; a girl who works at a Mickey's, who slowly realizes she's not doing the right thing; her free-thinker wannabe mom, played by "Medium" Patricia Arquette; her "he's straightened out and flies right," so he's encouraging her to do the same, uncle, engagingly portrayed by Ethan Hawke; as well as the girl's animal rights activist friends; and her (former) Mickey's coworkers, who think nothing about spitting on a pattie before it's cooked and served to an unsuspecting Kinnear, about picking one up off the floor and throwing it on the grill...and who are even concocting some hare-brained scheme to rob the restaurant. All these tidbits may not appear to fit together as neatly as a well-layered hamburger, but if you can survive the last ten or so minutes--when we're finally taken to "the kill floor"--and still manage to come out on the other side as an unabashed carnivore--all I can say is, more power to you. Quality ensemble acting: very true-to-life. A harsh reminder of what people put up with to survive. Ninina needs 2.75 popcorn boxes.