Wal-Mart battle chronicled in ‘Ourtown’

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On DVD

OURTOWN, produced and edited by Michael Richard, Doreen Conboy and Wendy Hebb, 56 minutes, not rated.

The Maine-based documentary, “Ourtown,” follows the grass-roots efforts of two stay-at-home mothers from Damariscotta who decided in 2005 to organize a group of local residents to fight a Wal-Mart Supercenter from being built in their town.

Like so many small towns, Damariscotta, with its population of 2,041 people, has an intimacy and a sense of community the women and their supporters feared would be lost if a big-box store the size of their entire downtown area was allowed to open near Route 1.

Their fears were not unfounded, their quest not unusual. Nationwide, hundreds of communities have resisted Wal-Mart’s push, knowing that when the company and its smiling yellow dot come to town, not everyone is smiling along with them. For some, it isn’t just a way of life that’s lost when a powerful retail establishment is allowed to open in a rural area and damage its downtown, but also livelihoods, with local retailers who sell similar fare unable to compete in the face of such a shrewd, savvy corporate giant.

Given their limited financial resources, it was a fight these women (Jenny Mayher, Eleanor Kinney) and their scores of supporters had to launch with focus, thought and heart. This is a movie about democracy, about the power of raising your voice and the ability for the little guy to overcome a corporate Goliath.

“Ourtown” is a well-done examination of that effort, but what keeps it from being a significant film is that it doesn’t delve as equally or as deeply into the lives of those Damariscotta residents who indeed wanted Wal-Mart in their town. While they do get some screen time here, the irony is that this film short-changes their presence.

Wal-Mart’s success suggests that regardless of the company’s gross shortcomings – low pay and benefits for its work force, refusal to bank locally, artistic censorship, the funneling of money out of state and out of country (the list goes on, none of it flattering) – plenty of people nevertheless desire the options and the convenience the store offers. They also want their less-expensive products, which no doubt assist poorer families, for whom a savings of, say, $5 literally can mean the difference between going home with a gallon of milk or not.

Watching the film, some might wonder who these people are on each side of the fence. Are they native to Maine, or have they come from away and paid plenty to capture their Maine ideal? Are they earning a good living and can afford higher prices, or are they struggling financially and might indeed benefit from Wal-Mart’s falling prices? In a movie slanted toward those trying to keep Wal-Mart out by implementing a 35,000-square-foot size cap on all new retail development, it isn’t unreasonable to ask the filmmakers to give us an idea of exactly who is fighting for each side. That they don’t is a misstep in an otherwise fine, thought-provoking movie.

Grade: B

Also on DVD

BOBBY, written and directed by Emilio Estevez, 120 minutes, rated R.

The trouble with “Bobby” is that it never is as compelling or as necessary as Robert F. Kennedy’s ideas, nor is it as interesting or as tumultuous as the time it depicts.

Written and directed by Emilio Estevez, the movie doesn’t brim with the edge of political and social unrest you expect; instead, it creates a blizzard of tiny melodramas within Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel, all of which fit snugly together – too snugly, really – when Kennedy is shot in the hotel’s kitchen by Sirhan Sirhan and later dies from those wounds.

The movie is a build-up to that event, with Estevez struggling to balance 22 personalities over the course of two hours. He proves that’s difficult to do. Shot over the course of 37 days, with no time or budget for rehearsals, the film moves in and out of its characters’ lives with such casualness, their stories become fleeting, meaningless vignettes amid the hagiography.

Jarring the movie further out of reality is that the stars just keep coming. Here is Demi Moore as an alcohol-soaked nightclub singer – great hair, but who is she, really? There are William H. Macy, Heather Graham, Christian Slater and Sharon Stone caught in some unexpected ugliness, while Ashton Kutcher, Shia LeBeouf and Brian Geraght drop acid in ways that might affect RFK’s numbers at the polls.

In the hotel lobby, look – there’s Anthony Hopkins and Harry Belafonte playing chess. Just upstairs are Martin Sheen and his insecure, freaked-out wife, played by Helen Hunt. Meanwhile, Laurence Fishburne becomes something of a black messiah to a group of angry Latino kitchen workers, Freddy Rodriguez chief among them. On their way to the chapel are Lindsay Lohan and Elijah Wood, who are about to be married so she can save him from a war that skirts only the periphery of the movie.

Other characters and subplots abound, with the movie only fully realizing itself when Estevez cuts away to actual footage of Kennedy speaking around the country. Here is the movie at its best – Kennedy delivering his own message, which is just as timely today as it was nearly four decades ago. That he gives the best “performance” in the movie doesn’t say much for all the many characters tugging for attention at its core.

Grade: C-

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays and Fridays in Lifestyle, weekends in Television as well as on bangordailynews.com. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.

The Video-DVD Corner

Renting a video or a DVD? BDN film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores. Those in bold print are new to video stores this week.

Akeelah and the Bee – B+

The Ant Bully – B+

Babel – A-

Basic Instinct 2 – D+

The Black Dahlia – C-

Blood Diamond – C+

Bobby – C-

Borat – B+

Cars – C

Casino Royale – A

Charlotte’s Web – B+

Cheaper by the Dozen 2 – C-

Children of Men – A

Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – A

Clerks II – B+

Crank – B+

Date Movie – D-

The Da Vinci Code – C+

The Departed – A

The Descent – B+

The Devil Wears Prada – B+

Dog Day Afternoon: HD DVD and Blu-ray – A

Employee of the Month – C

Eragon – C

The Ernest Hemingway Classic Collection – C+

Everyone’s Hero – C+

Failure to Launch – C-

Fast Food Nation – B-

Flushed Away – B+

Flyboys – C-

Freedomland – C-

Friends with Money – B

Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties – C+

The Good Shepherd – B-

The Gridiron Gang – C+

The Grudge 2 – D-

Half Nelson – A-

Happy Feet – A-

A History of Violence – A

The Holiday – C+

Hollywoodland – C

Identity: Blu-ray – B

The Illusionist – B+

Infamous – B+

Inside Man – B+

Invincible – B

Jackass Number Two – B

Junebug – A

Kinky Boots – B+

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – B+

Last Holiday – B

The Libertine – D

Little Miss Sunshine – B+

Lucky Number Slevin – B

The Marine – C+

Match Point – A

Miami Vice – C

Monster House – B+

Munich – A-

My Super Ex-Girlfriend – A-

North Country – C

The Omen – B-

Open Season – B

Over the Hedge – B

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest – B-

Poseidon – B

A Prairie Home Companion – C

The Prestige – B+

The Pursuit of Happyness – B-

Rocky Balboa – B+

Running with Scissors – C+

Shakespeare Behind Bars – A-

Sherrybaby – B+

The Shirley Temple Collection, Vol. 5 – B-

Shut Up & Sing – A-

Slither – B

Snakes On A Plane: A-

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby – B

This Film is Not Yet Rated – B-

United 93 – A

Volver – A

W.C. Fields Comedy Collection, Vol. 2 – B+

The Wicker Man – BOMB

World Trade Center – A

X-Men: The Last Stand – B-