The Founder is an entertaining and well-paced biopic with a lush colour palette, charming period details and a wired performance by Michael Keaton. Although the spectre of cliché and formula can be felt, they never fully arrive because of the skillful brevity of Robert Siegel's script, which pithily packages McDonald's origin story and creates a reasonably complex character in Ray Kroc. He's introduced as a motormouth salesman with a strained marriage, yet he transcends this stock character and earns our sympathy through his cast iron perseverance and lack of pretension. This sympathy, I hasten to add, all but evaporates as Kroc becomes more and more of a parasitic usurper.
Again, there are times where you sense the arrival of a contrived plot point or two, but The Founder confidently skirt mediocrity through the strength of its performances, cinematography and compelling source material.
Again, there are times where you sense the arrival of a contrived plot point or two, but The Founder confidently skirt mediocrity through the strength of its performances, cinematography and compelling source material.