It’s worth watching if you’re already sort of on the fence about Wal-Mart, but much like a Michael Moore documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price is one of those films that’ll get you angry before you realize that it’s almost completely one-sided. Not to say that the information and testimonials in the film should be totally disregarded. Hell, I myself dislike Wal-Mart and will never be a patron of their establishment.

The big problems of the film stem from the one-sidedness and the fairly amateur production level. It feels like an hour-long political commercial, with a mesh of “practiced” interviews and statistics you’re supposed to take as straight-up fact. Even though the interviews are mostly all with former Wal-Mart employees, you get a sense that the producers didn’t even really try to find anyone sympathetic to Wal-Mart (if such people exist beyond Lee Scott and the Walton family).

So… yeah. You can take it for what it’s worth, I suppose.

A critical look at Wal Mart, including the issues of monopoly, low wages, anti-union actions, discrimination, parking lot crime, and human rights violations in factories.

I’m not a fan of Wal-Mart and this “documentary” gets the point across at how amoral the company is, but man, this was poorly produced, executed and edited. It was very segmented and choppy, poor transitioning, it felt almost amateurish and rushed. Redo.

Bad Wal-Mart, bad movie.

Bored me out of my mind. Yeah, we know corporations can be bad. I can only watch so many interviews of people dissing Walmart in one sitting.

http://www.walmartmovie.com/

Another great documentary from Robert Greenwald. Reminds us that the American Dream is founded on the nightmares of others around the world (and in the US itself).

Any company that makes 10 billion a year but forces its workers onto welfare for health benefits is immoral.

Any company that destroys local economies while proffering to offer increased choice is dangerous.

Any company that outsources its work so its products can be made for peanuts, and then forces those workers to lie about their terrible working conditions, is engaging in economic terrorism.

Any system that actively encourages this way of doing business must be overthrown.

Worth watching the interview with the filmaker on the DVD first, before watching the actual film IMHO as it explains some of the schmaltzy techniques used throughout.

I blogged about this movie