t isn't every movie that features a man in a gold lamé bodysuit with a three-foot gilt phallus that would make Superman blush or maybe just reconsider the whole Lois Lane thing. Then again it's not every film that features the Yes Men, a coterie of anti-corporate activists who travel the world with sartorial flair, political ire and a prodigious sense of the absurd. Like the makeover mavens from "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," the Yes Men have a way of winning over strangers and commandeering drab rooms. As the golden appendage proves, they also know a little something about accessorizing.
Part performance piece, part political intervention, the unveiling of the appendage takes pride of place in the new nonfiction film "The Yes Men," which opens today in Manhattan. Directed by Chris Smith, Dan Ollman and Sarah Price, the film brings together some of the Yes Men's more recent pranks with a fly-on-the-wall look at how these activists operate. Diverting if heavily padded, this is the newest addition to an increasingly crowded field of political nonfiction films and certainly the easiest viewing.
Like many recent documentaries, "The Yes Men" takes a sacrosanct approach to its subject, up to the point that it sometimes plays like a promotional video, so it's unlikely to rock your world or worry your sleep. Entertainment rules even when the ideological vibe is more Noam Chomsky than Donald Trump. Still, because leftists tend to be downers, what with their horror stories about hegemony, it's a relief that the Yes Men are guided more by the spirit of Abbie Hoffman than Mr. Chomsky. (They're partly financed by the sympathetic likes of the Herb Alpert Foundation.)
The waggery becomes evident in the film when two of the Yes Men, Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, show up in Tampere, Finland, for an August 2001 trade conference called "Textiles of the Future." The Yes Men had been invited by conference organizers, who, on visiting the activists' Web site believed they were contacting the real World Trade Organization. The opening pages on both groups' Web sites look identical, and none of the Finnish organizers bothered to vet the phony W.T.O. or its representatives, one of whom had infiltrated a seminar on international trade in Salzburg, Austria, the year before.
(That prank isn't included in the documentary, but it's worth repeating what one of the Austrian organizers later wrote about one Dr. Andreas Bichlbauer, a k a Andy Bichlbaum: "The essential thrust of his speech appeared to be that Italians have a lesser work ethic than the Dutch, that Americans would be better off auctioning their votes in the presidential election to the highest bidder and that the primary role of the W.T.O. was to create a one-world culture.")
The Salzburg stunt was reported in the press, including The New York Times, and prompted a response from the World Trade Organization that essentially boiled down to a representative's stating that the world body "deplored" the Yes Men. (In a magazine interview, Mr. Bichlbaum later responded that the Yes Men "deplored" the W.T.O. right back.) Happily for activists and for the documentary, the news seems never to have reached Finland.
And so, Mr. Bichlbaum and Mr. Bonanno, armed with that shiny bodysuit and with a camera crew in tow, traveled to Finland to unleash their mischief. They may not have been mischievous enough. Remarkably, the conference attendees looked surprisingly unruffled by Mr. Bichlbaum's outré getup (including his three-foot "Employee Visualization Appendage," with camera attached at the end) or his outlandishly funny take on slavery and the advantages of "involuntary" labor.
Maybe Finnish executives are super-polite, the ultimate yes men and women. Or maybe the authentic World Trade Organization is so surreal that nobody notices when it's lampooned. If you're not up on multinational trade it is hard to know what to believe, because no one in "The Yes Men" really explains what's wrong with the trade body; it's simply a given that, like globalization, it stinks. That may be indeed the case, but it's too bad the filmmakers didn't work harder and assume less. During another intervention, one of the Yes Men announces that the World Trade Organization has decided to disband. The organization, he says, will "eventually reintegrate as a new trade body whose charter will be to ensure that trade benefits the poor." For some, the irony here will be rich; for free-trade absolutists, though, it will probably just sound like W.T.O. business as usual.
"The Yes Men" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It contains some adult language and raucous humor.
THE YES MEN
Directed by Chris Smith, Dan Ollman and Sarah Price; edited by Mr. Ollman; produced by Mr. Smith and Ms. Price; released by United Artists. At the Landmark's Sunshine Cinema, 139-143 East Houston Street, East Village. Running time: 83 minutes. This film is rated R.
WITH: Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno.
