French fries costing less? It's a critical situation (3,5,3,4)

'critical situation' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't tell whether it can be defined by this definition.

'french fries costing less? it's a' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'fries' could be 'chips' (I've seen this before) and 'chips' is located in the answer.
'a' is found in the answer.
'it' could be 't' (abbreviation. e.g. in 'tis) and 't' is found within the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...

Can you help me to learn more?