Movie Review: Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (3/5 stars)

This documentary definitely made me depressed; I already hated Wal-Mart before renting it, and now I hate them even more, if possible. There was a lot of good facts and information given, along with un-scripted testimony by former employees, managers, and general victims of Wal-Mart's reign. But as far as documentaries go, I thought this one was directed very poorly. The camera movements were inappropriately shaky and the people being interviewed were sometimes cut out of the shot entirely. This might be viewed as artistic or more 'realistic' in the documentary world, but to the viewer, it's just annoying.

Normally in documentary films, the director will offer other points of view, or at least some positives to outweigh the negatives. Even if the positives are crushed moments later by negative truths, at least they're there - but in this film, it was all negative. (Don’t get me wrong - I'm happy there's nothing positive to say about Wal-Mart, but I am still disappointed that the director didn't provide both sides to a debate.) The director also commissioned a handful of fake commercials, mocking Wal-Mart's advertisements from a few years back. Shown once in the film, with the rest in the Special Features section, each cut humorously shoved Wal-Mart's hypocritical treatment of their employees in your face, with quick, witty scripting. Three of these ads had two famous actors involved, playing a couple who live next door to a recently built Wal-Mart store.

This film was also edited very poorly, with overlapping segments not quite balancing each other out and the audio levels were all over the place, so I had to keep my remote control nearby to constantly adjust the volume level. The only aspect about the editing I found to be well-done, was cutting bits of the CEO's "Wal-Mart is Amazing" speech, then showing you the truth behind the comment he just made. The interviews were also improperly balanced, with some peoples' stories getting drawn-out for large chunks of the movie, and others getting just a few minutes of screen time. But only running at an hour and a half, the film didn't seem overly long or boring.

Overall, I give this film three out of five stars. The negative information was very upsetting and appalling, but the documentary itself falls just short of a good, sturdy film. Worth seeing, but I'll never watch it again.