review - Food, Inc.

"Food, Inc." (2009) is a compelling documentary film directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Robert Kenner. The film examines corporate farming in the United States, concluding agribusiness produces food which is unhealthy in way that is abusive of animals and environmentally-harmful. Narrated by Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, I was surprised at the candor of the presentation.

Speaking of narration, I always go into this type of documentary with stereotyped trepidation because of presentation. New documentaries about corporate misdeeds are so left of center you can smell the stir fried tofu a mile away. "Food, Inc's." narration was noticeably absent of the neutered, asexual drone spoken on the bare threshold of audibility. Another plus in the film's favor was no endorsement from the Sundance Film Festival, which means these guys took the gloves off and are ready to hold some calloused feet to the fire. Lawsuits from the corporations called out here also gave the production some street cred.

"Food, Inc." comes at you in three distinct parts. The first segment examines the industrial production of meat (chicken, beef, and pork), calling it inhumane and economically and environmentally unsustainable. Part two looks at the industrial production of grains and vegetables (mostly corn and soy beans), again labeling this economically and environmentally unsustainable. The film's third and final segment is about the economic and legal power of the major food companies, such as food libel laws, whose livelihoods are based on supplying cheap but contaminated food, the heavy use of petroleum-based chemicals (largely pesticides and fertilizers), and the promotion of unhealthy food consumption habits by the American public.

So there you have it. Also of note is that "Food, Inc." was one of the few films of this type that implicated not only the Bush administration, but also held the Clinton administration accountable for a series of misdeeds. You usually don't see that and I have seen plenty of these documentaries. Fair and balanced indeed....check this out if you have 93 minutes and hamburgers to munch on.