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'Yes Men' take political pranks to the topBy Bob Strauss - LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWSWHO are "The Yes Men"? You shall know their works, but not much about the "who they are" part, after seeing this humorous, informative and sometimes brain-stumping documentary.
The Yes Men are, apparently, a loose collective of young men who stage elaborate frauds as a form of social protest. The movie focuses on Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, who pretended to be members of the World Trade Organization a few years back. They were invited to speak on behalf of the big, bad globalization organization by credulous trade groups, business news shows and universities.
Appearing in places like Finland and upstate New York to deliver reasonably argued presentations about the commercial advantages of slavery or "reburgering" post-consumer waste into fast food for the Third World's starving, the YM receive everything from polite agreement to thrown projectiles from their audiences.
We watch Andy, Mike and assorted helpers meticulously prepare their satiric assaults, most of which are clever but, consequently, suffer from an eye-glazing sense of insider detail.
Still, the documentary, which was co-directed by Chris Smith ("American Movie"), Sarah Price and Dan Ollman, addresses worthwhile questions about international capitalism in a more entertaining manner than did the recent documentary feature "The Corporation."
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