`Yes Men' yank any chain they can reach

A short-haired, bespectacled representative of the World Trade Organization is explaining the WTO's plan to reduce starvation in developing nations. Using NASA technology that recycles food through astronauts' bodies over and over, the WTO has created the "Re-burger," processing human waste into new patties that can be served to the poor.

But the speaker isn't really a member of that infamously secretive group. He's a prankster named Andy Bichlbaum who formed the Yes Men with Mike Bonnano and a loose-knit cadre of associates. The Yes Men came together to say "No!" to the WTO, among other exploitative organizations, and the documentary "The Yes Men" shows how and why they devote a large chunk of time to undermining institutions.

The film doesn't answer a lot of questions. What are their backgrounds? How do they keep out of the clutches of corporate lawyers? How do they pay their bills, let alone have time for international escapades? We're told Herb Alpert of A&M Records and Tijuana Brass fame bankrolled an escapade, but this is a Yes Men movie: Anything could be a leg-pull. (Their www.theyesmen.org site isn't much more explicit.)

On the other hand, what we do see is unusually funny and sad. It's funny because their outrageous antics make us question accepted beliefs and leave their uncomprehending targets looking like fools. It's sad because we live in a world where the split between rich and poor grows ever wider, and the people they're mocking have no interest in narrowing that gap.

Before needling the WTO, the pair achieved two coups. Bichlbaum worked for the company that designed the famous Sim City video simulation game; when he was put in charge of designing people for the Sim Copter sequel, he made them all beefy men in bathing suits who kissed each other. (This inversion of the macho template apparently went over big with the gay video-game audience. Who knew?)

They also formed the Barbie Liberation Front, which switched the voice boxes on GI Joes and Barbie dolls and got them into the hands of consumers. Thus Barbie growled, "Dead men tell no tales!" and Joe could be heard to coo, "I LOVE shopping. Who's going with me?" On an intellectual level, this forces us to re-evaluate role-playing substitutes for kids. On a practical-joke level, it's a hoot.

But the WTO plan was the big one. They set up www.gatt.org, knowing it would be mistaken for the Global Anti-Terrorism and Trade site by superficial readers. Sure enough, people thought it was GATT (precursor to the WTO) and invited representatives to conferences and lunches.

Bichlbaum went on the European version of CNBC as Granwyth Hulatberi to set forth the WTO economic philosophy: the Darwinian, survival-of-the-fittest model. As Kinnithrung Sprat, he informed astonished Australian journalists that the WTO realized its policies were brutal and exploitative and would reinvent itself on a U.N.-designed model.

The Yes Men's coup, though, was to attend a European economic summit in Tampere, Finland. There they explained the real economic tragedy of the Civil War: It destroyed a viable Southern economic structure (slavery) which, left alone, would have evolved into the far more efficient sweatshop model used today in Africa and Asia. The receptive crowd nodded and applauded. Before you laugh too hard at them, though, ask yourself who makes the clothes you buy at those big-box discount stores.

REVIEW

The Yes Men

An anarchic group uses satire to reveal corporate wickedness. Amusing and thought-provoking.

STARS: The Yes Men.

DIRECTORS: Dan Ollman, Sarah Price, Chris Smith.

LENGTH: 83 minutes.

RATING: R (language).