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In St Louis, MO, in 1954, traveling salesman Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) is lugging a five-spindle milkshake mixer on a thankless tour from one carhop drive-in to the next, spinning his well-rehearsed patter about how “if you increase the supply, demand will follow” to disinterested owners who only need to make one milkshake at a time, thank you. At night he retreats to lonely motel rooms with a bottle of whiskey and his collection of positive-thinking records for company. Everything changes in his Willy Loman-esque existence the day his office gets an order for six mixers. Kroc wonders: What kind of Podunk joint needs to make 30 milkshakes at a time? The order must be a mistake. He drives out to San Bernardino to see this “McDonald’s” operation for himself, and is agog at the booming hamburger stand run by Dick McDonald (Nick Offerman) and his brother Mac (John Carroll Lynch), whose kitchen is a ballet of industrial efficiency.

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