Review: In 'the Founder,' Cutthroat Big Business, Supersized

When Kroc (Michael Keaton), a struggling traveling salesmen selling milkshake mixers, first beelines to San Bernardino, California, in 1954 to get a look at Dick (Nick Offerman) and Mac (John Carroll Lynch) McDonald's burger joint, he stands agog at the counter. Kroc quickly recognizes the revolutionary power of the McDonalds' restaurant and becomes its franchise-driver and the pre-eminent proselytizer of an empire built on burgers. The arches, an invention of Dick's just like its other innovations, will spread "from sea to shining sea," Kroc vows. [...] the genius behind McDonald's lied largely with Dick McDonald, who engineered the "speedee service system" of its assembly line-like kitchen, designed its layout and focused its tiny menu. In the opening scenes, Kroc, struggling to eke out a living on the road, faithfully listens to Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking. [...] The Founder," like its subject, is a little mechanical and a little too timid to really take a bite out of McDonald's. The bad taste of day-old McNuggets begins to form in our mouths as our hero turns villain, and a successful one at that. The Founder," a Weinstein Co.