A Movie You Might Have Missed #67: The Founder

It's been 11 years since I began this series highlighting movies I wished more people knew about. I'm rerunning it from the beginning because I still think these are movies you might have missed.

He took someone else's idea
and America ate it up.

The Founder is the story of Ray Kroc, a salesman who turned two brothers’ innovative  restaurant, McDonald’s, into one of the biggest restaurant businesses in the world with a combination of ambition, persistence, and ruthlessness.

This normally isn't the sort of movie I feature as "a movie you might have missed." It's got a big star, a director who's done movies people know (The Blind Side, Saving Mr. Banks), and is about an American institution. And yet I'm continually surprised to find that so few people have heard of it.

We enjoyed it a lot both as a biopic and as a business movie. Make no mistake, it has a very definite point of view. If you check History vs Hollywood, as I like to do after watching any movie "based on a true story, you will see where the creators made story choices to enhance the points they were interested in discussing. The movie as a whole leaves you pondering innovation in its many forms and what it means "to invent" something.

Also, I defy anyone to watch this and not come away wanting a burger and fries. Maybe with a milkshake on the side.