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Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 18 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 7 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Documentary
Written by:
Directed by: Robert Greenwald
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 4, 2005
Running Time: 95 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Robert Greenwald's documentary WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price takes you behind the glitz and into the real lives of workers and their families, business owners and their communities, in an extraordinary journey that will challenge the way you think, feel... and shop. (Brave New Films)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism Steal This Movie! Uncovered: The War on Iraq
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Greenwald floats the vital issue of whether Wal-Mart should be restrained by antimonopoly regulations, but his real question is cultural: Even with its rock-bottom prices, is Wal-Mart in the best interest of American consumers?
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
The cut-rate colossus didn't just ride the tide that sucked industrial jobs out of our towns and cities and spat out low-wage service-sector jobs in the sprawling exurbs -- it helped create it, and at the very least drastically accelerated it.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
The movie's masterstroke is to avoid interviewing the usual anti-globalist suspects and let solid, hard-working middle Americans speak.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
For all its missteps, the movie powerfully suggests that Wal-Mart is capable of demoralizing a community so thoroughly that it doesn't have the spirit to carry on its life outside the big box.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Left-wing flame-thrower Robert Greenwald (Uncovered: The War on Iraq) gets after the global giant anyway, and he may have you thinking twice before entering another Wal-Mart parking lot.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ernest Hardy
The list of ills is endless, well-researched, and cross-referenced repeatedly for emphasis. That makes the film a bit of a slog at times, but the fury and grief of the folks interviewed propel it forward.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
An engrossing, muckraking documentary about the retail giant that's been called "the world's largest, richest and probably meanest corporation." But if you're expecting an angry diatribe, you're going to be disappointed.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
It's not a question of agreeing or disagreeing with this film's point of view to say that it isn't as often convincing as it is convinced.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
While the film is obviously meant as a call to arms, the very single-mindedness of the approach could work against it.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck
Lacks the cinematic panache to elevate it above the level of agitprop. But its all too relevant dissection of its subject is well worth paying attention to.
Read Full Review >Empire David Hughes
With more thorough editing this could have been on a par with Greenwald's previous films. His source material is gripping, but not life-changing.
Read Full Review >Variety John Anderson
For all the film's provocations and documentation, however, Greenwald never seems get to the heart of the matter: that it is the consumer who makes Wal-Mart powerful.
Read Full Review >Village Voice James Crawford
Viewers may not be surprised to learn of Wal-Mart's horrific track record, but they can't deny Greenwald's airtight advocacy.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Wal-Mart's home office in Bentonville, Ark., can rest easy: Greenwald, as usual, is hysterically preaching to the choir.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.4 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Big Timer gave it a10:
Excellent insight into powerful corporation that doesn't understand or want to understand "social responsibility" or how to take care of their own.
John Boy gave it a6:
The film ends with a strange self-absorved thud of idolatry for the cause. Its use of music was excessively manipulative and unnecessarily so. I have to feel that an opportunity was wasted and that, in the end, the good that this film could've done would be erased by its senseless execution of not letting the story speak for itself. I gave it a 7 because I know what Wal-Mart is about and they've presented a rather damning argument despite its poor sense of what makes a quality documentary.
Neema S gave it a2:
Where's the comparisons to other companies? Where's the focus on the consumers that save thousands of dollars each year? Where's the employees who couldn't get jobs elsewhere? This is a classic mockumentary: political advertisement disguised as real film.
James B. gave it a9:
This is a documentary that sheds light on the many things that we already suspected about the retail giant. I wasn't taken in by every aspect of the movie, such as the "poor little employee" stance against the big-bad employer....but at the end of the day (and the end of the movie), it was quite enlightening. Pay close attention to some of the statistics, according to the film, such as the Walton family (worth 102 billion dollars) donating less than 1% of their worth to charity as compared to Bill Gates' 58%. The film claims that there is nearly 27,000,000 sq. ft. of empty Wal-Marts sitting around the country collecting dust. You will not feel that you have wasted your time by watching this film. On the other hand, if your interests are confined to buying cheap stuff cheap, and you don’t care at all what becomes of your community, it may not be worth the small investment to purchase this DVD.
nate p. gave it a5:
Wow what can i say.... i hated this movie. i might as well go to a trailer park and just scream wal mart sucks, youd get more of a response.
