FOOD, INC.: You are what they eat!

FOOD, INC.
Directed by Robert Kenner
Magnolia Home Entertainment
Review by Louis Fowler

I purposefully, and on a regular basis, ingest foods with E. coli or salmonella. Whether it be undercooked pork or unwashed spinach, raw egg or questionable beef, I will eat it, daring the dread disease to infest my body and throwing my fists up to Heaven in defiance!

And you know what? With the exception of a few minor cases of diarrhea when I first started this wholly abhorrent practice, I have never gotten sick. Like our pioneer forefathers did, I have trained my body to adapt to the changes in the molecular make-up of the current state of our food products and I am a better man for it. We could all be better for it!

Everyday, our nation's best, smartest food scientists are constantly finding new ways to make food last longer, repel more bugs, taste better than ever and, best of all, have fewer natural ingredients. Before you know it, a whole nourishing meal will come complete as a tiny, flat cracker, man-made and, thanks to artificial flavors and preservatives, utterly delicious. You call this tampering in God's domain, I call it progress!

The makers of the documentary FOOD, INC. (touted with the dubious selling-point as being “from the company that brought you AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH”) would probably brand me a deluded monster, spreading misinformation as sick joke of some sort, and they would be right. Especially after watching the damn thing, I'm actually more inclined to start my own chicken-slaughtering business, complete with aberrant living conditions, uncountable illegal alien workers and a big ol' subsidy from my good friends in the Bush, uh, I mean Obama, Administration.

Don't get me wrong: I wanted to like FOOD, INC. I wanted to be enthralled and educated, but, like so many docs of its politically-leaning ilk, it falls prey to the usual ruiner of such things: its own constant self-congratulatory back-pats. These docs, with their proudly unsheathed lib agenda, don't care about giving you facts or informing you; they emotionally manipulate and play on your worst fears. It's important to know about food safety and food handling procedures and the like, but, when it's done with such wank-off arrogance, what's the point of putting the time, effort and energy behind a movie like this? All you're doing is preaching to the converted! (But maybe that's why you do it? Maybe you knew you had a built-in fan-base so your return on investment was guaranteed? Egotism for a better tomorrow!)

I will say this, though: presented in the second-half is an expose of Monsanto's devious practices against soybean farmers. This was shocking and, when you learn the government is in cahoots with them, you wonder if our civil liberties are really dead. In Colorado, where I live, it is actually against the law to besmirch any agricultural product publicly, lest you want a hefty fine and possible jail time. This news angers me juuuuuuust enough when...

Yep, there we go. FOOD, INC. once again manages to lose sight of its purpose and goes back into playing the same-old blame game, pointing fingers, offering absolutely no answers. Smug jerk-off Eric Schlosser shows up eating a hamburger (Do as I say, don't do as I do, right?). Poor overweight Mexicans-American are exploited as they are buying some Burger King. And, worst of all, director Robert Kenner stoops low and does the unthinkable: he uses that ol' Michael Moore ploy of a crying mom talking about her dead kid in order to gain sympathy for his agenda.

Too bad that, for many viewers smart enough to see through this heavy cloying mist of DDT, all it really does is reinforce that growing, ever-present cynicism. You realize just how empty and hollow the whole thing is. You realize that the purpose of the movie was nothing more than a masturbatory soapbox based on the lone fact that Kenner just must love to hear the sound of his own voice, eyes shut, nose in the air, Prius fully recharged!

Special features include deleted scenes, an episode of Nightline, tips for eating healthy and, best of all, horrifically hilarious and awesomely embarrassing “Celebrity Public Service Announcements”, some of which star Alyssa Milano, who's nude breasts I have seen in various erotic thrillers, so, of course, I have no respect for her opinion.

Do food laws and regulations need to change? Yes! Should people know what they're putting into their bodies? Without a doubt! Is education on the facts the answer? You bet! But let's be honest: no one is going to honestly listen to these guys. Sure, upon theatrical release FOOD, INC. might have been a minor darling with the hippie-indie-lib crowd, but we all know it'll soon be long-forgotten and, eventually, most of the science proven wrong, just like that other political-agenda doc, oh, what was it called...that's right, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.

Or, you know what? Why not cut out the middle-man? Why don't you get into the spirit of self-preservation and self-efficiency? Why not just quit your non-stop whining, grow a pair and have a bite of my homemade sushi tar-tar casserole, now with extra Velveeta! It's Monsan-tasty!