The Yes Men

The Yes Men is a brilliant and hilarious documentary by the filmmakers of American Movie. I checked it out at last year's Toronto film festival.

The film centres around a small group of anti-globalization activists who went around the world posing as WTO representatives at major industry conferences. Their appalling presentations were often met with applause by world business leaders.

The only problem is that the documentarians mentioned they did not have promission to shoot what they were filming and thus are having a difficult time getting the rights to the images from the conferences they were at. It would be a real shame if The Yes Men was not allowed to be released in theatres.

The Yes Men is a documentary about a group of anti-economic liberalization activists who have made a unique habit of impersonating the WTO and other right-wing organizations (including the George W. Bush presidential campaign) in talks and national media spots. They try to get noticed by the overblown repugnance of the right-wing plans they suggest for the world's poor. If Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" was a satirical short story about the rich literally devouring the impoverished, these guys are the long running Broadway adaptation.

Despite the release of the movie and many high profile performances, they still have not been properly outed, which is good for their continued success since still nobody recognizes them, but part of their aim is to get people who would normally listen to the WTO talk start thinking about globalization and its human consequences in the third world (poverty, hunger, pollution, disease, increased political and domestic violence, environmental destruction, and so on).

Since it's a documentary normally I wouldn't be lauding performances, but in this case, these guys do perform for their audience, and they are absolutely wonderful. They propose such things as recycling human waste to be made into McDonald's hamburgers to be sold in the third world. To see them advocating the employment of sweatshop workers because it's more humane than slavery and MUCH more cost effective (since "involuntarily relocated workers" require room and board at American rates and in the third world you can employ dozens for the same price and you don't have to look after their health or recoup the costs of transporting them overseas if they "escape"), while nobody listening bats an eye, is hilarious (if horrifying). They take the best of Michael Moore, The Corporation, and Supersize Me and sneak it in under the noses of the world's economic and academic elite at conferences on globalization.

I was lucky because the filming ended in 2002, but the proprietors of the theater where I saw it downloaded their latest prank off webcast, which featured a Yes Man impersonating a spokesman for Dow Chemicals speaking on the Bhopal massacre, which was easily equal to anything else they'd pulled off, and played it at the end of the movie.

After the birth of Fahrenheit 9/11 and other Michael Moore creations, there has been a plethora of politically driven documentaries entering the media culture. More and more films are being created to showcase either the ingenuity of the activists, or to uncover some unknown corruption in the system that we were not familiar with. It is a chance to be educated about the world surrounding us and the honesty of evil. In one of the most recent documentary releases, The Yes Men, we have the opportunity to both see the ingenuity of the activists and slightly uncover some corruption in the world. While The Yes Men is a very active film giving us these nervous moments of tension as two men pretend to be someone that they are not, the words and final moments that they are trying to convey do not always seem to come full circle. It felt as if they had this huge "ta-da" at the end of their crafty moment, but nobody seemed to care. Everyone agreed and went about their normal business. I guess that was the point that these activists were trying to show, but somehow I felt like it was all a part of some lackluster performance instead of this "in-your-face, this is wrong with our country" moment.

Our two main characters that we follow throughout the course of the film, Mike Bonanno and Dr. Andreas Bichlbauer (as if these are their real names), seem like they have such a grasp on their knowledge of the issues that they would want a bigger change to happen at the end of their "moment of glory" instead of just walking away as if they were just another cog in the machine. For example, their first speech overseas about the WTO and this phallic device that will help supervisors maintain their workers was a punch in the face, but like my reaction to the situation, nobody seemed to care. I think, in this case, it hurt the film. I wanted feedback from the audience about this bold move by the WTO and see outrage in their eyes, but instead nobody seemed to care. The same can be said about the last conference they attend where they officially close the WTO. That is a huge statement, and yet again … nobody seemed to care. Sure, there were people afterwords talking about how happy they were, but the excitement or emotion was just not present. I wanted, and honestly needed, something that showed that these activists were making riffs in the corporate eyes of the world, not just filling a time slot.

The only time that they did not get such a passive response was when they spoke during a college class about the food solution in third world countries. Here, we did see the emotion and the anger at what they suggested, albeit was a bit more graphic and disturbing, but there was an outburst at the idea. The only trouble is that I have been to conferences before, and most of the time you are there because your business has forced you to be there, so you will believe anything that is said until the day is over just to get through. In college, you pay for your schooling so independent thought really is encouraged and is shown in this film. I do not think that this college scene did the justice that it deserved and really didn't seem to mesh with the rest of the film. I think these guys wanted to get some raw emotion reactions from anyone, and they found it here. I think they were trying to overcompensate for what their other conferences were missing. Sadly, it felt more like a jumbled mess instead of a valued point.

Overall, I was somewhat impressed with some of the aspects of this film, while not impressed with others. I thought the fact that these two "nobodys" could get into these conferences without a lick of accreditation or background check. Especially after the world's security tightened after 9/11. I think that was the aspect that shocked me the most. The rest of the film was interesting to watch, it just never felt like it was edited together correctly or that there was this big "ooooohhhhhh……ahhhhhhhhh" sort of moments. Like the audiences at the conferences, I sat back and watched without really seeing the outcome of their work. I would have liked to know more about these guys and the changes they made to our global community. I would have liked to see at least one curmudgeon old man getting angry about what these two radicals thought, but nothing. Just plain agreement and wipe the slate clean. I felt the Yes Men focused to deeply on the development of each situation without having any sort of strong follow-up with the results. That hurt this film deeply. Perhaps I have grown accustomed to the "shock-umentary" style of film-making that is being released more and more, but I just never felt passionate about these guys. They were doing good work, but will it be remembered for years to come? I am not 100% sold on it yet.

Grade: *** out of *****

Wow, to read the negative reviews on this site is a sad experience. (the positive ones are great of course). To realize how many people don't get the humor in this film -- it's just way over their heads, apparently (yes, even the brilliantly used "potty" humor) -- and to see how many Americans are sitting around criticizing the VERY FEW among us who are the most active, courageous, daring and funny . . . you people need to take a good look in the mirror.

What are YOU doing to expose the hideous corruption and lies and power imbalances endemic in our society? What are YOU doing to entertain people, to create really damn funny films on a small budget that inspire people to get off their asses and act? (and yes, the Yes Men films inspire a LOT of people).

Self proclaimed film critics are always among society's most useless and insipid, but in this case, the people griping at the Yes Men for not providing them with an activist film up to their personal standards need to seriously rethink the use of their time in this life.

Thank you, Mike and Andy, for giving us some huge laughs and showing us that even two regular guys can stir up the pot for the betterment of humanity.

I saw this hilarious and very entertaining film at the Berlin Film Festival in February of this year. Very refreshing look at the 'WTO' and its side kicks from an inside point of view. A subversive political documentary with a sense of humour in the vein of 'Bowling for Columbine'. All the travel, costuming and filming were done with the smallest budget and the 'actors' just two guys who want to reveal a few things about how stuff gets done in the US of A! During the Q and A someone asked a question about the legality of using some of the clips and whether they had permission to film the conferences.

It was clear that all these issues had been covered and the film releases this autumn in Europe as far as I know.