Film Comment
"[T]he superb FOOD, INC. offers an elegantly constructed and absorbing analysis of the monolithic U.S. food industry." 06/01/2009Box Office
5 stars out of 5 -- "It's a sobering and worthwhile look at an important subject many have not even thought about....FOOD, INC.'s end credit sequence offers numerous ways the consumer can and should make a difference." 05/26/2009 Los Angeles Times
"[A] smart, expertly shot documentary....[The film] gives an eloquent array of writers, activists and farmers time to enlighten us about the perils on our plates, but now without offering hope for a safer future." 06/12/2009 New York Times
"[A]n informative, often infuriating activist documentary....You'll shudder, shake and just possibly lose your genetically modified lunch." 06/12/2009 Hollywood Reporter
"Kenner takes you through these unsettling stories through a mix of articulate talking heads, cameras peering where Food Inc. doesn't want scrutiny, citizens lobbying their representatives in Congress and entertaining graphics and animation." 06/12/2009 A.V. Club
"Kenner takes audiences deep into the ugly underbelly of American food production....Its heroes are realists who've found a way to be relatively humane within the system..." 06/11/2009 Rolling Stone
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "Kenner keeps his film bouncing with humor, music and graphics....The message he's delivered with the help of nutrition activists, including Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan is an eye-opener." 06/25/2009 Rolling Stone 9 of 10
Eating can be one dangerous business. Don't take another bite till you see Robert Kenner's Food, Inc., an essential, indelible documentary that is scarier than anything in the last five Saw horror shows. Decepticons have nothing on ears of corn when it comes to transforming into mutant killers. Kenner keeps his film bouncing with humor, music and graphics. Just like the ads that shove junk food down our faces. The message he's delivering with the help of nutrition activists, including Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma), is an eye-opener. High-fructose corn syrup and its friend the E.coli virus are declaring war on national health, and federal agencies, lobbied by Big Agriculture, ain't doing a thing to stop it. Reason? Profits. The movie offers solid alternatives. If the way to an audience's heart is through its stomach, Food, Inc. is a movie you're going to love. - Peter Travers
Chicago Sun-Times 9 of 10
The next time you tuck into a nice T-bone, reflect that it probably came from a cow that spent much of its life standing in manure reaching above its ankles. That's true even if you're eating the beef at a pricey steakhouse. Most of the beef in America comes from four suppliers...The next time you admire a plump chicken breast, consider how it got that way. The egg-to-death life of a chicken is now six weeks. They're grown in cages too small for them to move, in perpetual darkness to make them sleep more and quarrel less. They're fattened so fast they can't stand up or walk. Their entire lives, they are trapped in the dark, worrying...All of this is overseen by a handful of giant corporations that control the growth, processing and sale of food in this country. Take Monsanto, for example. It has a patent on a custom gene for soybeans. Its customers are forbidden to save their own soybean seed for use the following year. They have to buy new seed from Monsanto. If you grow soybeans outside their jurisdiction but some of the altered genes sneak into your crop from your neighbor's fields, Monsanto will investigate you for patent infringement. They know who the outsiders are and send out inspectors to snoop in their fields...This review doesn't read one thing like a movie review. But most of the stuff I discuss in it, I learned from the new documentary "Food, Inc.," directed by Robert Kenner and based on the recent book An Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I figured it wasn't important for me to go into detail about the photography and the editing. I just wanted to scare the bejesus out of you, which is what "Food, Inc." did to me...It's times like these I'm halfway grateful that after surgery I can't eat regular food anymore and have to live on a liquid diet out of a can. Of course, it contains soy and corn products, too, but in a healthy form. They say your total cholesterol level shouldn't exceed your age plus 100. Mine is way lower than that. And I don't have to tip. - Roger Ebert
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