(2006; English, Spanish) A group of Mexicans enter the US with the aid of a coyote where they end up working for the Uni-Globe Meat Packing plant in Cody, Colorado; Don Anderson (Greg Kinnear), the vice president of marketing for Mickey's Hamburgers, gets sent there from Anaheim, California, to investigate allegations of high fecal coliform counts in the beef patties.

Undocumented immigrants Raul (Wilmer Valderrama) and his wife Sylvia (Catalina Sandino Moreno) and her sister Coco, who speak only Spanish, work in the plant where the accident-prevention video is in English, where untrained people on the gut table frequently are injured (some having limbs severed), where supervisors such as Mike (Bobby Cannavale) take advantage of the new females.

In realistic detail, director/co-writer (with author Eric Schlosser, whose 2001 book inspired the fictionalized film) Richard Linklater shows us the beef trail from the corrals to the killing floor of the slaughterhouse to the counter where customers buy their burgers. Taking a tour through UMP, Don's impressed ("It's spotless") with what he observes: stainless steel, hi-tech equipment, face masks and gloves on all employees. So how's manure getting into the meat?

High-school senior Amber (Ashley Johnson) works the cash register (using a code to record every customer's ethnicity and purchase) at Mickey's; one of the kids in the back spits into the Big One that will be served to Don, who's in charge of the merchandising campaign.

The fast-food store manager Tony recommends his uncle, Rudy Martin (Kris Kristofferson), a rancher, for a cattleman's point of view. Straight-from-the-hip Rudy, who sold his cows to UMP, asks Don: "Did they show you the kill floor?" Of course not. Rudy's Hispanic housemaid explains how the work goes so fast that the contents of the stomach and intestines sometimes spill onto the butchered meat.

Next Don has a conversation with Harry Rydell (Bruce Willis), an executive VP out of Chicago who arranged for UMP to be the supplier for Mickey's, visiting Cody. "Frankly, I don't see the problem," Harry the realist, defending the status quo, says to idealistic Don: "Meat is supposed to be cooked…. Just cook it." We don't shut down Detroit's carmakers just because 40,000 people die each year in automobile accidents. "We all have to eat a little shit from time to time."

A few months later, Amber, after listening to her uncle Pete (Ethan Hawke), a radical in his college days at CU opposing apartheid in South Africa, urging her to "change things for the better," quits her job and enlists with a small group of college eco-activists.

When Raul is injured at the plant and accused of using meth, Sylvia, who had left UMP for a motel maid's job (crossing paths earlier with Don), goes to Mike for another chance with the company.

Still want to order a burger with fries? (Watch this along with a Coke and Super Size Me.)

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

Patrick Ivers can be reached via e-mail at .