I really wanted to like this documentary. I am a huge supporter of small businesses and my favorite places to eat and shop are the mom and pop shops this doc wanted to portray. Hell, I've had birthdays at small coffee shops, and I've spent countless summers hanging out at indie comic book and music shops.
But the fact is, the two "documentarians" don't present both sides of the argument, they commit the journalistic mortal sin of not telling the whole truth. They glance over that not so tiny detail, they don't fully mention how many people the "big bad" chain stores employ. They want so badly to vilify the Wal-Marts and Starbucks of the world (which is like shooting fish in a barrel) when in actuality, they themselves have probably shopped at these stores at one time or another.
Now, I'm no fan of the corporate coffee house (I don't drink coffee anyway), but I realize that they do employ thousands of people more than indie shops do, because indie shops really don't hire that often. Ergo the moniker "mom and pop shop". I myself work at a corporate bookseller, because I'm a college student in need of work. And even though mom and pop shops are family run, that doesn't necessarily make them "indie".
Once, when my family was in between homes, we stayed at a Best Western, and a lot of people forget that even though it is a chain business, many of these places are INDEPENDENTLY owned and operated (like Denny's). Hell, it says so behind the counter. And guess who runs the place? Not some evil Cheney-esquire megalomaniac, but a Korean lady and her 2 sons. Yes that's right, big chain stores can be run by families. And this documentary doesn't really cover that aspect in its entirety.
That's my biggest problem with the documentary, it doesn't make a clear distinction between Mom and Pop shop and Independent shop (like Al Gore blurring the line between oil consumption and pollution, 2 very obviously different things). Because there is a difference. The people who work at chain stores aren't evil, they're regular people who need a job and it just so happens that chain stores offer more starter job opportunities, which is a hard truth to swallow for some people.
Let's not forget that both Heather Hughes and her husband Hanson Hosein both work for a major cable news network. And quite frankly, I'm not buying their wannabe altruism one bit. If you wanna talk fighting big business un-ethics, they should talk about not buying any product made in China. Why didn't they just drive up to the corporate offices? Isn't that their true enemy? Or maybe it's because their big business employer might share the same building? However, I did like some of the documentary. I did like the fact that they actually stopped to talk to people, and they actually talked to a manager at a Wal-Mart (which employs a number of students, senior citizens and ex-cons who might not've been able to find employment anywhere else, and jobs help keep people out of trouble). And they did mention that Starbucks did start out as a small business.
Which is why I didn't give this doc a 1/10.
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