Kendal Scott (kescott-12606) **May contain spoilers!!Wal-mart: The High Cost of Low Price is a documentary produced in November of 2005 by Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films. Greenwald and Brave New Films take an extraordinarily biased approach that will make you feel, think, and probably shop differently. If you don't already know or understand what's wrong with Wal-mart, this documentary will without a doubt fill in the blanks. This documentary exposed Wal-Mart's unprincipled business practices through interviews with former employees and executives and small business owners of communities Wal-mart inhabited. The film leaps into the incredibly personal stories and everyday lives of families and communities struggling to fight an invasive giant. A working, single mother is forced to rely on government assistance to provide health care for her two children. A Missouri family loses its business after Wal-Mart receives over $2 million to open its doors down the road. A Chinese woman worker is forced to work in intense heat in Wal-mart factories for minimal pay. A mayor struggles to provide for his first responders after Wal-Mart leaves and relocates just outside the city limits. Hundreds of lawsuits take place each year against the retail giant. There is not one main narrator in this film, but rather countless people we interact with every day in our local hardware stores or family-owned grocery stores, which makes this documentary hit a little closer to home. Many people don't realize what is happening with Wal-mart and the negative impacts it's making, but the numerous narrators bring it to light. It's difficult to not be biased while watching this documentary. Real accounts by real people describe their difficulties and struggles because of Wal-mart's actions. For example, the documentary begins in a small town called Middlefield, Ohio. Long established, independently owned stores were nearly destroyed. The Hunter family, who opened H&H Hardware and has run it for many generations, was driven out of business because local people saw Wal-mart as a cheaper and more easily accessible outlet for goods. Wal-mart is a monopoly and no control has been legislated to protect free enterprise in these towns they takeover. Its strategy, supposedly, is to "crush the competition". Millions of dollars in tax abatements are given to Wal-mart to establish itself in a new location, but local owners seeking equal abatements are turned down. Cities are often between a rock and a hard place because if they don't provide Wal-mart with what they want, the company will simply pick up and leave said location leaving the town deserted. When Wal-mart leaves, it takes away key jobs that may not have existed before in the town.As many as 31 states have filed lawsuits against the Goliath for unfair employee practices, unpaid wages, and discriminatory accusations. Wal-mart is aggressively anti-union. At a minimal threat from unions, as described in the film, three managers were flown by jet immediately to the "problem store" and identified and fired specific employees pertaining to the nuisance. They would halt employee wages and blame its actions on the unions in the area. Wal- mart's employees, nearly 70% women, have been bombarded by discriminatory remarks from their managerial staff. A $1.6 million lawsuit has been filed against Wal-mart for its discrimination against women (Wal-mart). Different opinions and thoughts can be devised simply by the way a documentary is portrayed. Throughout this documentary, first hand accounts of experiences of employees, managers, and community members helped shape the biased directive for this film. Having these people narrate this documentary allowed audience to be more drawn in to the subject and be more in-tune to the real story of the film. In my own experience, it allowed me to closely relate a lot more to the people narrating this documentary. The film mostly entailed a narration by these people and also depictions of strikes and commercials that supported the problems these people faced with the Wal-mart Corporation. Being able to see these protests by the employees and "fake" commercials by this behemoth company gave even more of a reason to dislike it. If there was only one narrator in this film, I feel it would have been a lot more difficult to understand the reasoning behind it. By supplementing it with countless interviews and first-hand accounts, it gave the audience a bigger case against Wal-mart and more evidence of its wrongdoings. All in all, as easily seen by this documentary, Wal-mart is not what everyone may think about it. Wal-mart portrays itself in commercials as a stellar employer in employee treatment, community involvement, environmental protection, charitable offerings, and human rights. This is obviously not the case. As presented by these many narrators, Wal-mart is far from what they appear to be. Wal-mart may be beneficial to those who cannot afford higher priced clothes or food, but in the end it is hurting us more than helping. As a massive, hypothetical cycle, we buy, employees work, employees apply for government assistance, taxpayers pay this assistance, and Wal-mart gets richer every year. Wal-mart then proceeds to construct more and more stores, which need more and more employees and the cycle continues. This cycle will always continue so long as Wal-mart has this overwhelming power over these cities and its people.

gymdudenc If the point of this documentary is to portray Walmart in the worst possible light then it was a complete success. However, I believe the goal of the film was to present us with convincing arguments that we are paying a high price for low cost. In this respect it fails miserably. It consists almost exclusively of small town business owners who prior to Walmart were some of the comparatively wealthiest in their town; but now are angry that the very capitalism that brought their good fortune is now taking it away. The remainder consists of disgruntled employees who seem to at the very least suggest that any Walmart employee should make 40K a year - which is simply unrealistic for a stocker or cashier. So long as a coherent argument was made in this film, I would still give it 5 out of 10, but it seems to lack any legitimate reasoning for its real thesis that Walmart is evil. One would be much better served by a PBS documentary attempting to address the influence of Walmart in American culture.

Lola Blue I don't like Wal Mart. In fact, I hate Wal Mart. And I an not a liberal, I am a radical.I am proud to be an American radical, in the tradition of our Founding Fathers, who wrote the most radical document of its time, the US Constitution. I love my country. I really do. I'm about to take an oath to devote by life to upholding its laws. But I hate Wal Mart.And yunno what I hate more than I hate Wal-Mart? This holier than thou, ivory tower, I joined the Young Socialist Workers Party because my daddy bought me a BMW instead of a Mercedes movie.Back to Wal Mart. Let's not kid ourselves, it's a miserable place. As shopping day approaches, I dread going there. I used to work there while I was in law school, so I know how they treat their employees. Everything from the manky bathrooms to the inefficient checkout lines to the hopeless looks on the faces of my fellow patrons and the workers makes me dread Wal Mart.But, get this, you rich, guilty sons of privilege. I don't have the luxury of choosing not to shop at Wal Mart. If I don't shop at Wal Mart, I don't eat. Do you know how much four years of college and three years of graduate school costs? Of course you don't. You were born with a silver spoon full of WASP upper class guilt in your mouth.I find this documentary demeaning to all working class people, and all people of other classes from working-class backgrounds because it makes us seem like a bunch of ill-mannered, uneducated slack-jawed pigs crowding into the trough because we're too lazy and stupid to realise what a lousy place it is. We're too poor and too black and too ethnic to know better, right? So you rich WASPs have to come down from the mountain and tell it like it is? Whether it comes from some right wing corporate lackey or some left-leaning do-gooder, it still feels the same to be talked down to, I assure you.We know all about Wal Mart. We work there, we shop there, we live in the communities it serves. Don't you dare point your plastic finger at me and tell me what you think you know about being working-class in America, what you think you know about our neighborhoods and our communities and our way of life. You don't know, and you never will know. If you don't like Wal Mart, don't shop there. We don't have a choice. You don't understand that, and you never will.Will I shop at Wal Mart when I can afford not to, anymore? You bet. But until then, as much as I hate it, I'm grateful it's there. I need Wal Mart. Wal Mart shoppers and workers need Wal Mart, as much as some of us admittedly hate them and everything they stand for.Why don't you make a movie about that? A movie about why places like Wal Mart exist and what's been done to the working-class and the poor and the lower middle class in this country and how we're all being pummeled and squeezed back into the 1890's? Now there's movie I'd like to see. But I'm sure one of us would have to make it, not one of you. Why don't you go have a coffee at Starbucks, and if you have no solutions to contribute to our problems, just more empty suit preaching, then just leave us alone.

murray_johnc I'm somewhat bemused by comments by viewers like Mr Donald Fagan of Baltimore. The gist of his argument seems to be that Robert Greenwald is being unfair to Wal-Mart because other "big box" stores are playing the same game. The whole point of targeting the Wal-Mart chain is the sheer scale of their operation. If the senior management team at Wal-Mart achieve their ultimate goal, pretty soon there isn't going to be any K-Mart or Sears or ....whatever. One could just as easily argue that the Alex Gibney documentary "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" was unfair to the top brass at Enron Corporation because other technology companies like "WorldCom" and "360 Networks" were run just as dishonestly! Nobody disputes that, but again you have to take the sheer scale of the operation into account. If only sleaze-bags like Michael Moore could produce documentaries as honestly and professionally as Robert Greenwald, the industry would be all the better for it in my opinion