3 ½ stars (out of 4)

When, at the beginning of his speech to the Republican National Convention, Democratic Sen. Zell Miller said, "There is but one man to whom I am willing to entrust [my grandchildren's] future, and that man's name is …," didn't you gasp a little? Didn't you wonder, just for a second, if Miller might be poised at the podium as an interloper? Didn't at least one tiny corner of your brain think, man, what a prank this would be if he stunned the crowd with the words, "and that man's name is … John Kerry."

It wasn't, and he didn't.

But the Yes Men would have.

The Yes Men is a small group of activists who carry out an agenda through elaborate pranks aimed at revealing the true intention of The Man (they call these stunts "identity correction"). Their antics against the World Trade Organization are captured in "The Yes Men," a guffaw-inducing, eye-popping documentary by the filmmaking team behind "American Movie."

Artistically and technically, "The Yes Men" is no great shakes, but Yes Men Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno's subversion is juicy enough to carry the low-budget doc. Before joining forces to fight the WTO-power, Bichlbaum made waves as a computer programmer when he replaced a video game's well-endowed sexpot drones with PDA-prone gay men. And Bonanno founded the BLO--Barbie Liberation Organization--which in the early '90s swapped the voice boxes of Talking Barbie and G.I. Joe (so Barbie would say, "Vengeance is mine!" and G.I. Joe, "Will we ever have enough clothes?")

Thankfully these two jokesters found each other and in 2000 produced www.gwbush.com, a site designed to mimic and satirize George W. Bush's official campaign site (When asked about the Yes Men, Bush answered, "There ought to be limits to freedom.")

After parodying the soon-to-be commander in chief, the boys took aim at the WTO, setting up www.gatt.org. Through the power of Google, earnest Web surfers looking for information on the WTO came across gatt.org and the Yes Men began fielding questions about trade policy and globalization. Soon enough, they were invited to speak as legitimate WTO liaisons.

And speak they did. The film captures them addressing the textile industry in Finland, where Bichlbaum dons a gold lamé costume with a giant appendage extending from its groin that at its tip holds a digital screen with which bosses can monitor their underlings, dubbed the Management Leisure Suit. Please see the movie just for this.

Bichlbaum appears on CNBC and argues against an anti-WTO activist that "might equals right." He lectures in Salzburg as Dr. Andreas Bichlbauer on the free-trade benefits of an international vote auction (in which votes in, say, national elections are auctioned off to the highest bidding corporation). He gives an elaborate PowerPoint presentation promoting "the involuntary imported workforce model of work" and states that the Civil War was a waste of money because slavery would have been replaced in time by a more efficient model: remote sweatshop labor.

With each prank, the Yes Men expect to be booed off the lectern, but the shock is that time and again, no one flinches. Sure, there are giggles, and the agribusiness representatives in Sidney sit up in their chairs when Bichlbaum announces the dismantling of the WTO. But nothing really throws the pre-programmed audience, not even the lamé jumpsuit with its giant golden penis, prompting Bonanno to ask rhetorically, "What can't corporations get away with?"

This changes when the Yes Men take their show on the road to SUNY Plattsburgh. Let's hear it for the apathetic youth of America! Because after expounding on a new WTO-McDonald's recycling program (in which human waste is processed into hamburgers for the starving Third World), Bonanno and Bichlbaum get a heated reaction. Some students walk out, others yell, many throw things, there are spitballs. And then they get the joke. Finally, someone gets the joke.

Each shenanigan is rooted in what the Yes Men see as truth. No, the WTO is not advocating for slavery of the historical variety, but the Yes Men aim to show how uncomfortably similar today's global labor model is to that now discredited institution. And though not in so many words, to its adversaries, the WTO's motto may as well be "might equals right."

Watching the Yes Men prepare their elaborate pranks, the enterprise feels awfully devoid of malice, unlike say, the pranks of HBO's equally hysterical "Da Ali G Show." These are some terrifically funny and gutsy guys who want to draw attention to what they see as the natural limit of WTO policy.

They'll make you hoot. They'll make you think. And they'll make you wonder how often you drink the Kool-Aid.

"The Yes Men"

Directed by Dan Ollman, Sarah Price and Chris Smith; photographed by Ollman and Smith; edited by Ollman; produced by Price and Smith; featuring Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno. A United Artists release; opens Friday. Running time: 1:20. MPAA rating: R (language).