Having read Eric Schlosser’s non-fiction account of the gruesome truths of fast-food production (human limbs in the burgers et al…) I didn’t really know what to expect from a fictionalised film version. Or rather, I had some niggling doubts that it would struggle to knit together a cohesive narrative considering that the book is so reliant on bare journalistic fact as opposed to character or plot. And unfortunately I was right. The film starts promisingly enough, with Greg Kinnear’s ‘well-meaning but working for the man’ character Don heading to Colorado on behalf of a burger-chain to investigate the reason that faecal matter has been found in the meat. The air established is that of a Thankyou For Smoking-esque corporate conspiracy thriller, and audience interest is suitably piqued.

What Don encounters is a series of characters who are affected in various ways by the cruel conditions of the meat-packing factory (and hence the American corporate ‘machine’), from the abused Mexican workers to the teenagers manning the tills (and of course spitting in the burgers). And thrown in for good measure is a cameo by Bruce Willis, who manages to lend suitable menace to the character of Harry, the man who brokered the original deal between the burger-chain and the factory. A much more baffling cameo is made by pop-brat Avril Lavigne, who makes a complete idiot of herself trying to ‘get political’ about the welfare of cows (”why do the bad guys always win?” is about as deep as she can get). This obvious celebrity bandwagon-jumping does little to help the integrity of the narrative.

The script is inconsistent to say the least, prompting me to wonder whether half-way through the writer had been fired in favour of a teenage intern. It loses its way to the extent that the original message gets completely mangled (along with the poor old cows) and leaves you asking the question as to why they bothered to attempt such a pointless adaptation.