Marshall and the Movies

“Food, Inc.” is a social issues documentary dealing with a topic that should get Americans up in arms even more than Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.”  The integrity of the food that we shove in vast quantities is something that should concern us greatly.  However, the filmmakers give a surprisingly soft sell to a hot button issue.

The documentary consists of several vignettes, each giving a different perspective on the food industry and the dangers it poses for Americans.  They round all the bases of how their issues affects a wide variety of Americans, and we successfully understand how wide-reaching the situation really is.  The food industry is killing us off, ripping us off, and harming the environment.

However, the vignettes lack connection between each other, and it feels like we are watching a dozen good PSAs instead of one really good movie.  We see a mother whose son was tragically killed by infected meat and her fight to see that his death was not in vain.  We see a farmer who tries to stand up to inhumane conditions in her chicken coop.  We see a struggling family who can give their children either a small piece of fruit or a Whopper with their daily food allowance.  These are all wrenching in their own right, but they share no common thread other than their overall lack of urgency.

The makers of “Food, Inc.” managed to convince me of little other than the futility of the situation.  Most of the vignettes ended showing the “good guys” losing, simply not powerful enough to overtake the massive might of the food industry.  They also took a massive misstep in not weaving in the solution to the problem throughout the movie, instead opting for a few soulless title cards before the credits.  See “Food, Inc.” if you want to be concerned, but not if you want to be inspired.  B /