This week Mr. Taylor saw The Founder starring Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc, a man impressed by a speedy Californian burger restaurant run by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald (Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch).
Kroc convinces the brothers to put him in charge of franchising McDonald’s restaurants all over America.
Speaking of franchises, Mr. Howe saw Rings, the third instalment to the horror story. Following from where the second one left off, there is a new video cassette making the rounds. After Julia’s (Matilda Anna Ingrid Luzt) boyfriend Holt (Alex Roe) watches the movie, she has seven days to save him from his impending death at the hands of Samara (Bonnie Morgan).
We say, “The Founder is good, but a bit vague. Rings is vague, but a bit good.
TAYLOR: Michael Keaton is at his best when he’s playing a jerk. It’s not that he can’t act or that he hasn’t played decent, moral characters. There’s just something about him that sinks easy into the unlikable.
Ray Kroc, in The Founder and I presume in real life, was a jerk of some degree. Exactly how negatively you judge his actions seems to be the point of the film. On one side, you have a story about a salesman made manager, an imaginative capitalist, battling the resistance of short-sighted owners. On the other side, you have a cold, greedy and shameless shyster. This is the kind of movie you can talk about.
HOWE: It’s funny that I only re-watched the original Ring last weekend with my little boy and he didn’t think it was that scary.
If you are looking to be scared then Rings isn’t going to help either. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good movie, a good beginner horror, I don’t even think you could class it in the genre, it has more of a Scooby-Doo mystery to solve. Like the first film, it revolves around solving the clues on the video tape. Who is Samsara and what does she want?
The thing that I liked about Rings was the lack of jump scares, rather using music to build the tension.
TAYLOR: I realized, the day after watching The Founder, that not a lot happens in it, yet it doesn’t feel long or boring even with a run-time of nearly two hours. There were a few instances where it felt like the filmmakers were trying too hard – a few sappy music cues, a couple grand gestures.
The film doesn’t have delusions of grandeur, because it is a tale of an empire, it’s just not perfectly executed. Perhaps it’s just a bit blunt for my tastes. It’s still entertaining, interesting and well made. See it if you get the chance.
Keaton is fine, but Offerman and Lynch steal the show as the brilliant but sensitive McDonald brothers.
HOWE: The acting from the cast of Rings is fine and there are a couple of biggish actors in this film. Otherwise, it could have been a mess. Even though it’s not that frightening, give me this type of horror over a hacker/slasher movie, full of jump scares, any day of the week.
Taylor gives The Founder 3.5 *Garf Garf out of 5.
Howe gives Rings 2.5 video clips out of 5.
*Garf Garf is the name of a film about an alien who conjures hamburgers.
–Brian Taylor and Peter Howe are film reviewers based in Vernon, B.C.
