Over the weekend, I watched Wal-mart: The High Cost of Low Price, a recent documentary look into the business practices and influence of the largest corporation in the world. The film had some high and low points, but definitely is worth seeing.

From a factual and anecdotal perspective, the film excels. There are a lot of well-researched facts and figures thrown at you. There is also a number of small-town testimonials as to the negative impact Wal-mart imparts on the community. One of the more interesting segments follows a Chinese factory worker who (like so many of her co-workers) is forced to live in sub-standard dormatories and work for pennies per hour. The young woman is obviously intelligent, which makes the situation all the more heartbreaking.

The film’s one shortcoming is its lack of a narrative. The creators do a great job of telling you that Wal-mart is bad, but without a singular narrator, the film falls short of what it could be.

Despite this, though, the film is worth seeing and re-affirmed my already negative opinions of the retailing Goliath.