Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Borserie it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Lomedin So here we have a bunch of bush-followers, murderous-hypocrites, self-righteous Nazis claiming that wal-mart is an evil from China that is destroying their community.OK. Let me be clear: I'm against corporations, against the abuse of the weak and against laws that favor the rich over the less fortunate. I'm also against cheap products that destroy the planet, with the use of chemicals and pollutants needed to transform their raw material into the final toxic, non-biodegradable and easy-to-break mostly unnecessary little capitalist/consumerist treasure. Certainly, Wal-Mart is accomplice to some or all of that. But so are the "little" businesses. American products, generally, are not much better than Chinese when it comes to green production. Sure, there are more regulations, although they're either ignored or simply bureaucratic garbage that it's there to sound good and doesn't achieve anything in reality.Apart from that, blaming Wal-Mart for the destruction of small businesses is absurd: blame the same communities you claim to be the victim. No-one forces people to go shopping in Wal-Mart, so it's the customers who destroy all other businesses, not the corporation itself. Don't go pointing fingers if you are not going to do it for everybody involved. It reminds me, somehow, to the way people complained about Ryanair being terrible, with crappy policies and pauper customer service. Then I'd go: "So, you aren't using that airline any longer". To which I, inevitably, would receive the answer: "Well, they are cheap, so..." Honestly, people are plain dumb.I certainly am happy that families like the ones portrait in this trashy documentary get broken. It seems that whoever directed this rubbish thought it'd marvelous to show how these bigots love to kill animals "for sport", how they support the NRA and how proud they are to be citizens of "the greatest free country in the world".Yeah, right.

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.

dongoodner This really funny attempt at a documentary attempts to portray Americans as completely irresponsible.The business owners who claim that Wal-Mart drove them out of business... perhaps it had more to do with the fact that they didn't provide a product and a service that the market was willing to pay for.The employees who don't get paid enough, and don't work enough hours... perhaps they should get a second job, or (God-forbid) actually develop within themselves a marketable skill that someone else would pay them more money to do.The people that complained that their municipalities "subsidized" Wal-Mart's opening expenses... Perhaps you shouldn't vote for people that aren't going to do things that you don't agree with.This documentary made no attempt to present any other point of view, or suggest that everyone interviewed had a right to work somewhere else, shop somewhere else, or live somewhere else.In one memorable scene, a mother is be-moaning Wal-Mart's evilness because they don't provide affordable health care or pay enough... and in the background, her daughter (I'm assuming it was her daughter) is lying on the couch playing a Nintendo DS. Are you kidding me? You're too poor to afford health care, but you can buy a Nintendo DS?Another disgruntled employee bravely asserts "This isn't THEIR store. It's OUR store." I beg to differ Mr. Freaky Ear Pierced Guy. Did you raise the capital, create the business plan, or buy the land? or the building? IF that is YOUR store, then you should have no problem going out there with your friends that you were begging to vote yes to unionize and creating another store just like Wal-Mart. If you can do a better job, then do it. GO! You are free to do it! Quit groveling in your own ignorance. Nobody in the documentary asked him why he didn't just go get a better job, or learn how to do something that paid more.This documentary does a great job at forgetting that we are free to choose what we do, where we do it, and when we do it. It portrays corporate America as soul-less and evil, and that the people in this country are too stupid to figure out that they don't have to be victims of corporate America.

Michael_Elliott Wal Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005) *** (out of 4) Interesting, if one sided, documentary about Wal Mart and how they're taking over the country. Like various Michael Moore documentaries, I think this thing would have been better with an unbias view and I wish the "other side" of things was shown. The documentary goes all out to paint an ugly picture and it does this wonderfully but there is another side that isn't being told. I was rather shocked at the benefit and hourly wages thing but a few other points I just didn't agree with, especially the "small company" going out of business deal. Hey, it is a marketplace. Why should I pay $25 to a mom and pop when I can get the item at say, Best Buy for $15? The opening story had the old man talking about all the poor in the city but was his store able to give them jobs? No but Wal Mart was able to. There are other questions I had about this matter but in the end I think this is a classic example of the rich versus the poor and as we know, nothing is going to change. The rich will continue to get rich while the poor continues to get poor. I think every company is guilty of this so it's not only this store that has things to change.