surfandski

Don't ask me why, but when I rented FFN I thought I was renting a comedy about the FF industry. Instead what I got was a gut wrenching portrayal of the people that work in the low paying, dangerous jobs of the fast food industry. Some people seem to be disappointed about this movie, their complaints seem to be about the movie they were expecting rather than the end product they got. I hope I keep seeing more of Catalina Sandino, she was great in Maria Full of Grace and here again she shines as the face of the illegal immigrant underclass. Lots of nice little supporting roles by well known faces. Every time I see Bruce Willis in a good movie I keep wondering why he keeps putting out the crap he usually puts out, because when given a serious role where he doesn't have to use that stupid smirk,he always steps up to the plate. But the bigger message of FFN is not only about the working conditions of the poor, but also about what we are becoming as a nation, or actually what we have already become, an economy where maximizing profits by squeezing every penny from every element of the production line (humans included) is the ultimate goal. Where almost unnoticed every workplace is becoming a sweat shop and the goal is to provide cheap products for a workforce that in the end is losing its economic might. China and India will not turn into America, America will turn into China and India, and the machine won't care. As K. Kristofferson's character says (paraphrasing here). 'The machine has taken over, it is a thing of science fiction, all that matters is pennies by the pound, pennies by the pound'.

Excellent documentary about the influence, development and the demise of planet earth under the corporate structure. The film exposes the excesses of corporation and how capitalism has turned into savage capitalism. Lots of business luminaries contribute to the debate on the good and bad of corporations. Although watching this film is a bit depressing, as it exposes how the planet is being plundered and destroyed by a corporate world that is only interested in the bottom line, there is some hope in the fact that most of the people talking in this documentary are business men themselves who like sky divers who have floated for too long thinking themselves as fliers, now realize that they are falling, and although the ground is far away, they see how it is coming faster than previously thought. One thing lacking I believe is a larger expose on how to make the corporate world better as a whole. In the end we are left with the feeling that the corporation rides the turtle (earth) across the river like a scorpion, the very nature of the scorpion will destroy them both. Unless things change very soon we are a doomed planet.