Synopsis
The true story of how Ray Kroc, a salesman from Illinois, met Mac and Dick McDonald, who were running a burger operation in 1950s Southern California. Kroc was impressed by the brothers’ speedy system of making the food and saw franchise potential. He maneuvered himself into a position to be able to pull the company from the brothers and create a billion-dollar empire.
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Cast
- Michael KeatonRay Kroc
- Nick OffermanDick McDonald
- John Carroll LynchMac McDonald
- Linda CardelliniJoan Smith
- B.J. NovakHarry Sonneborn
- Laura DernEthel Kroc
- Justin Randell BrookeFred Turner
- Kate KneelandJune Martino
- Patrick WilsonRollie Smith
- Griff FurstJim Zien
Recommendations
- 80
Variety
Keaton plays Kroc as a man both pathetic and singularly possessed, cannily resisting lovability at every turn, while delivering the internalized self-help speak of his sales pitches with chillingly glib precision. - 80
Screen Daily
The extent of Kroc’s greed is The Founder’s unique playing card, and John Lee Hancock delivers it with a depressingly special sauce. - 80
Los Angeles Times
[Hancock] turns the unlikely subject of a fast-food chain into a quasi-religious satire, a parable of American striving and, ultimately, a study of artisanal integrity gradually caving in to commercial compromise. - 75
The A.V. Club
Hancock is not the ideal fit for the queasy mix of fascination, sympathy, and discomfort that Siegel brought to movies like The Wrestler and Big Fan. The Founder is drier than either of those movies, which means it’s less funny but also has even less potential for sentiment. - 67
IndieWire
If The Founder comes up short of providing a satisfactory dramatization of its main storyline, at least it peels back the veil with sufficient intrigue. Yet it still leaves the sour impression that Kroc got the last laugh. Even in this less-than-flattering portrait, he remains its brightest star. - 60
The Hollywood Reporter
Hancock's apparently irrepressible penchant for folksy Midwestern types and perky montages dilutes any cynicism or misanthropy that might have given this material the edginess it deserves. - 60
Time Out
Like the product that inspired it, The Founder is tasty enough while it lasts but never quite fills you up. - 59
TheWrap
The Founder never steps up to become the biting satire of American capitalism it so begs to be. The film is not here to praise Ray Kroc, but neither is it here to bury him.
