Winnipeg Sun

Imagine if Punk’d or Jackass had a point.

Culture-jammers and anti-World Trade Organization types have long been aware of Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, leftist pranksters whose 2003 debut followed them as they impersonated WTO executives.

In their amped-up sophomore (if not sophomoric) follow-up, they truly do set their sights on world domination in the prankster game. The results are not only frequently hilarious, they shine a light on societal trouble spots — including media gullibility, the ephemeral house of cards that is the stock market, the immunity of major corporations from prosecution over crimes, and the venality of balance-sheet morality.

If the movie has a fault, it’s that the boys lead with their masterpiece — probably the highest magnitude prank they’ll ever pull — and everything that follows in The Yes Men Fix The World pales in comparison.

The movie opens with Bichlbaum suiting up for an interview with the BBC. The British Broadcasting Corporation, for its part, thinks it’s about to interview one Jude Finisterra, a spokesperson for Dow Chemical. Dow had acquired Union Carbide, the company whose pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, released toxins in 1984 killing thousands of people. No one was ever prosecuted for the disaster, and Union Carbide’s non-prejudicial contribution to the cause of the victims added up to a paltry few million.

“Finisterra’s” message, broadcast worldwide via the BBC, was that Dow would own up to its responsibility in Bhopal and voluntarily pay out $13 billion in damages.

It didn’t take long for real Dow execs to come screaming at the BBC, but the damage was done. Within 20 minutes, Dow shares dropped $2 billion in value.

So what’s most troubling about all this? That the BBC could be fooled with a phony website and a spiel? That if a multinational corporation ever feels inclined to do the morally right thing, they now know the extent to which the market will punish them? That the survivors of Bhopal will continue to be hung out to dry forever?

Some see Bichlbaum and Bonnano as criminals who should be jailed, and purveyors of cruelty to the people of Bhopal, who briefly believed they’d receive justice. In a later segment of the film, they pull a similar stunt in New Orleans, passing themselves off as reps for the federal Housing & Urban Development (HUD) with good news for Katrina victims (welcomed by local politicos).

On the other hand, they do force Dow to tacitly concede it will never do anything substantial to make amends for Bhopal. And a visit to the city produces amused reactions from the locals, who thank the Yes Men for bringing their forgotten atrocity back to the world stage.

Other escapades include Bichlbaum passing himself off as an Exxon rep at a Calgary energy conference, unveiling a candle made from a new “biofuel” derived from human flesh (comedian Reggie Watts portrays a terminally ill janitor who has sold his remains for fuel).

In another scene, he’s an adjustor with a spreadsheet comparing the bottom-line payout for Third World industrial deaths versus American. Tellingly, a number of delegates are extremely interested in this incentive to invest offshore.

In an ideal world, these pranks would elicit soul-searching as much as laughs.