Review of Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005) by Jim C — 16 Jan 2006

I don't usually care to comment on documentaries with a political edge. After all, as Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys once said (when asked why PSB wasn't more gay-centric with their music), "I just don't want to alienate half my audience". Which is a good point. Look at the brouhaha over Michael Moore's last two films. [i]Fahrenheit 911[/i] was either left-wing propaganda rubbish or a vindication of everything you've been saying about the GOP (depending on which side of the political spectrum you're on). [i]Bowling for Columbine[/i] raised the hackles of both the pro-gun and anti-gun parties, when in fact, the movie itself was sort of middle of the road. But [i]Columbine[/i] was also accused of fabricating scenes or facts to get its point across, and THAT'S what I don't like about political documentaries.

Facts don't even have to be fabricated. At one point in [i]Wal Mart: The High Cost of Low Price[/i], a seemingly endless list of crimes committed in Wal Mart parking lots rolls up the screen. Now don't think for [i]one minute[/i] that I [b]don't[/b] think that that list [i]isn't[/i] shocking. It is. But then you have to break it all down. How many Wal Mart locations are there in America? How many total hours are those locations open per year? If you do the math, it's not nearly as shocking as it sounds. Again, I say this not to defend Wal Mart, but to defend critical thinking. Homeless advocate Mitch Green was once reported by [i]every major news outlet[/i] as saying that "45 homeless people die every minute in America", yet not a single reporter called him on it. Green's assertion of fact would mean that a number of people equal to the population of Lynchburg, Virginia was dying every day. But they weren't.

And then there are the small businessmen that the markers of [i]Wal Mart: The High Cost of Low Price [/i]trot out to confirm that Wal Mart is throwing small businesses to the curb. Again, I'm not denying that this is happening, but I also wouldn't imagine that it would be too difficult to find three or four small business owners to whine on camera about how Wal Mart killed their business. It's the movie's appeal to the [i]emotions[/i] - see poor Bob's old granddad? How is he gonna buy his pills now that Bob's Hardware is out of business? - that kills it for me.

I say all of this as a resident of Belmont, North Carolina - a town that was featured prominently in the movie. And for what it's worth, they're building a Wal Mart here any way - set to open in March 2006.

In closing, let me say that [i]Wal Mart [/i]is a good film, but just don't let your emotions do your thinking for you.