Robert Greenwald's film builds its case against Walmart from the ground up, starting in Middlefield, Ohio, where the Bryant family's hardware store, H&H Hardware, closes within two years of a Walmart opening nearby, its owners left recounting the toll on camera. The film moves outward from there: former store managers describe pressure to falsify time cards and lock in overnight employees, warehouse workers in China describe wages and hours behind the low prices on American shelves, and footage from Inglewood, California shows residents voting down a proposed supercenter rather than accept the traffic and wage effects they had watched hit other towns. Interviews with economists, small business owners, and Walmart's own former employees are cut against company promotional material and public statements from executives, letting the gap between the two do the arguing. Segments on health insurance costs shifted onto taxpayers and on wastewater violations at distribution centers round out the picture. The film adds up to a single claim: that the retailer's discounts are subsidized by costs paid elsewhere, by workers, competitors, and communities.