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Home > the Edge > Movies & DVDs > Movie Reviews
Yes Men
( R )
Amusing `Yes Men' offers no insight
Review by Paul Sherman
Friday, October 1, 2004Bless the media pranksters. In a society that increasingly accepts whatever it is told, the antics of late, great pranksters such as Alan Abel or Abbie Hoffman and, nowadays, the folks at TV's ``The Daily Show'' rouse the public into questioning the information foisted upon it.
Add Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, subjects of the documentary ``The Yes Men,'' to the list.
The duo started its spoofing online, with Web sites that resembled those of George W. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign and the World Trade Organization but left out the sugarcoating about these controversial people andorganizations. Bush famouslydeclared ``there ought to be limits to freedom'' when commenting about the Yes Men's site.
Many mistook the World Trade Organization spoof site for the real thing and requested representatives of the pro-globalization WTO to speak at conferences. The Yes Men were happy to oblige.
``The Yes Men'' follows Bichlbaum and Bonanno as they prepare for and carry out suchappearances. They were amazed they could say outrageous things in faux-WTO appearances, and no one would challenge them.
So they decided to up the ante. In one speech, Bichlbaum offers busy outsourcers the solution for keeping an eye on exploited Third World labor: a gold jumpsuit featuring a phallic protrusion that houses a TV monitor that can be patched directly to cameras in the factory. No one in the audience bats an eye. (The suit is at Mass MoCA in North Adams as part of the museum's ``The Interventionists'' exhibit.)
In a lecture to a group of college students, the Yes Men promote the ReBurger. That's their plan in which human waste from fast-food burger consumers is treated and reformulated into food for the Third World. At least some students protest this not-so-happy meal.
Bichlbaum and Bonanno's pranks are clever and amusing parodies of post-globalizationimperialism. They are, however, about all ``The Yes Men'' has to offer. This latest movie from Chris Smith (``American Movie''), Sarah Price and Dan Ollman offers little sense of its subjects as individuals and, however entertaining and provocative, at 80 minutes it comes off as rather slight.
(``The Yes Men'' includes cursing.)
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