“When the competition is drowning, stick a hose in their mouths.”, Ray Kroc

The best line in this great movie is the one above. I have never seen a movie about the reality of money, business, success or failure that is better than the film “The Founder” which is the true story about Ray Kroc and how the corporation Mcdonald’s was originally founded.

Prior to getting involved with McDonald’s, Ray Kroc was a failure, trying to sell milkshake machines to restaurants around the United States before he stumbled onto two fast food founders named McDonald in San Bernadino California who amazingly to Kroc, wanted to buy eight of his milkshake machines. During his entire life, Kroc failed at many ideas he tried, but due to the success recordings he was encouraged by, he relied on his perseverance to rise above all the bad times he had in his career. While watching this movie and all that Kroc had to go through, you just had to admire him for surviving all he had to endure to finally become successful.

The Mcdonald’s brothers were the original founders of the fast food idea in the 40’s, inventing a brand new mass production technique for food, much like Henry Ford who did the same thing for the automobile. Most fascinating was their story about the large number of setbacks they had to go through and their move from a small town in California to San Bernadino. This included putting their restaurant on a truck and then sawing it in half so it would clear a bridge in the town of San Bernadino. After that amazing feat, they ran into problem after problem until they finally perfected the idea of fast food. The Mcdonald brothers were two very honest men and two very nice guys and what this movie shows so well, is that very often in both business and in life, “Nice guys finish last”.

Everyone who sees this film will have to make up their own mind of how good or bad Ray Kroc is as a person is in this true story. In my opinion, some of the things he did were justified and some were more than just because of business, they were about revenge and perhaps taking out his many years of frustration and money problems on other people. Much like the true story in the movie Joy, even after Kroc had success, he still had major money problems and many huge obstacles in his way that he had to overcome. Kroc needed a ton of perseverance to be successful, but as this story shows, he also needed quite a bit of luck too.

The Founder is a great film and one of the best acting performances in Micheal Keaton’s entire career. There is a scene in this movie that was remarkably like the movie “Pacific Heights”, that starred Keaton and came out in 1990, where Kroc walked into a hospital room holding flowers where one of the Mcdonald’s brothers was having a major heart problem because of extreme stress. I was rather amazed at how similar this scene was to a major turning point scene in Pacific Heights, which is another great movie that Keaton starred in.

I highly recommend this movie because the story is amazing and its message about success and failure in business and in life is very significant.

I remember thinking when I saw the great war movie “We Were Soldiers” in March 2002, that it was probably one of the best and most realistic war movies ever made. Mel Gibson has now made two of these, this one and the recent Hacksaw Ridge, that is the equal to this movie with its battle realism and story. War is a horrible reality of life that never should exist but unfortunately, it probably always will. Humanity has always been extremely adept at killing people.

This movie is outstanding for showing the strategy of a battle, this one taking place in Vietnam and known as the Battle of Ia Drang which happened on November 14, 1965, one of the worst battles in the entire war. Mel Gibson played Lt. Col. Hal Moore and most amazing about a man with his high rank in the military is that he stood right in battle with all of his men and always insisted on being the first soldier to enter a battle and the last one to leave.

The other memorable parts of this movie included all the wives back home who for days during that battle in Vietnam were receiving telegrams telling them that their husbands had been killed in battle.

We Were Soldiers is not for the faint of heart, but no movie that shows what war really is all about should ever not be truthful about its extremely harsh reality. I highly recommend this film.

When I saw “The Company Men” six years ago this month, I thought it was one of the best movies I have ever seen about the realities of life, money and working for other people. This film is about injustice and greed and the story can be defined very simply as a CEO of a company, played by Craig T Nelson, who became extremely rich off of the hard work of his employees for 30 years and then when it was time to make even more money, he fired almost all of them, not caring what happened to any of these people who built the company that made him rich. This film is about people back-stabbing and screwing over other people for their own financial gain. Most of the employees of this major company were living at their means, felt financially safe and secure and then all of the sudden, they all lost their jobs and there were no other jobs to be had anywhere. Most of the people who were fired had families and lived as if things would always be safe and secure and the money would always be coming in, never thinking that they would ever lose their jobs, which is a tragic reality for too many people.

The main focus of the film centers around Bobby Walker, played very well by Ben Affleck and his family and their struggles after he loses his job after the massive downsizing at his company. We follow Walker through the process of going to a job search company where they supposedly try to help you to get another job. As the months go by, he is forced to sell his car and other possessions and is worried about losing his own home. He is screwed around by recruiters and other contacts for months as he desperately tries to find another job before it is too late. Walker’s desperation and extreme anger at the company he helped built and his inability to find another job is very well portrayed in this film as is another fired employee Phil Woodward played very well by Chris Cooper. Kevin Costner also has a small role in this film as Bobby Walker’s brother in law and this is one of his better performances in recent years.

This movie came out at the perfect time, less than two years after the 2008 financial crisis and everyone can relate to the sheer terror of losing your job and financial security and finding no way out. The voice of compassion in this movie is portrayed extremely well by Tommy Lee Jones, who is the vice president of the company and tries to talk some reason and human decency into the CEO to try and stop him from firing so many good people.

This movie is a hidden gem that came out in 2010 and one of those small movies that everyone can relate to. I highly recommend The Company Men for everyone who has not seen this great film.