FOOD, INC. - robert kenner - 6.0 / 10

Lately there’s been an increase in what you might call social commentary documentaries. Traditionally relegated to the back of the book store, these sorts of polemics (often liberal and always one-sided) have, since An Inconvenient Truth made $50 million and won an Oscar, more and more begun to morph into documentaries. In and of itself this isn’t cause for alarm. But when they aren’t filmed or edited with any particular grace or style, offer no real narrative throughline and clearly leave one side out of the debate, they can become quite tedious.

Food, Inc., an investigation into the source of America’s food supply, certainly isn’t the worst of the bunch (Michael Moore’s got that well covered). It’s actually pretty interesting (assuming, of course, that you haven’t read The Omnivore’s Dilemma or Fast Food Nation, two excellent books that cover the same subject matter in much greater detail). But make no mistake, Food, Inc. is a very slight film. Precious few subjects are interviewed. No shocking footage is revealed. And nothing particularly surprising comes to light. If I had to use one word to describe the film, it would be workmanlike.

That said, the film’s subject matter deserves to be part of the national debate and a documentary has a much greater chance of entering the zeitgeist than does a cultural criticism book on the same subject. And if you view the film as a sort of primer on this area of study, a stepping stone that leads people to read The Omnivore’s Dilemma, then it will have contributed something worthwhile.