It's hard to take America seriously these days, but then that's probably always been the case. It'd be nice to think that the recession, the bailout, and Glenn Beck were the cumulative straw that broke the camel's back, but as Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, American Casino, and the new documentary The Yes Men Save the World are quick to point out, America's been on the sickbed since long before most of my generation were even born. Both American Casino and Capitalism take on a funereal if just slightly hopeful tone in their surmising of the current economic state, tracing the free-market scheming, political grandstanding, and a befuddling amount of economic jargon back to the 1980s when Ronald Reagan introduced America to the concept of trickle-down economics.

In contrast, The Yes Men Save the World is more in favor of grassroots theatrics and mischief at the expense of those couldn't find a sense of humor if you gave them a map to Steve Martin's house. The film, directed and written by Andy Birchlbaum and Mike Bananno, aka The Yes Men, opens on Birchlbaum's infamous impersonation of a Dow Chemical spokesperson on BBC World News wherein he admitted fault for Union Carbide's -- a subsidiary of Dow -- hand in the Bhopal chemical plant disaster that claimed over 5,000 lives. In character, Birchlbaum promised over 12 billion dollars in aid but was soon found out as a fraud and was skewered for it, as Bonanno and he are for many of the stunts they pull throughout Fix the World.

As the title ironically infers, Birchlbaum and Bonanno's film is a chronicle of blind hope met with crushing disappointment. The Yes Men, as they did in their 2003 film titled simply The Yes Men, use the forge of technology (web pages mostly) to ensnare conferences and summits into paying for them to come speak, posing as representatives of major companies (Exxon and Halliburton), and showcase stunts of grotesque and often macabre capitalism run wild. Their latest hoaxes perpetrated on the unsuspecting: using corpses as a source of renewable energy and a good substitute for wax, disaster protection gear modeled after a cockroach, an outsourcing program entitled "Golden Skeletons," and a complete reversal of HUD's handling of post-Katrina housing.

Many of these moments are uproarious, and it is borderline suspicious how The Yes Men continue to get away with these presentations, but as satirists, they are courageous and intelligent. But amongst the company men and free-market lobbyists, what seems to disappoint Birchlbaum and Bonanno most is that none of the spectators of their stunts seem to protest or criticize what they are doing. In the crew's first film, some time is spent on how The Yes Men were educated and where they grew up, but their fiscal infrastructure and legal battles remain unquestioned and undocumented even now; their website generally dodges the question, citing "friends" in other countries who help out. A third film might be dedicated to their fiscal infrastructure and whatever legal battles or SLAPP suits they have been privy to.

The Yes Men are dissidents of such fearless ingenuity that you want to believe them at face value, but they have already fostered and celebrated a pension for critical thought; the damage is done. The result is a question of selectivity dovetailing with an inspired call to action, but above all, The Yes Men Fix the World is a riotous reminder that patriotism is often misconstrued as troublemaking.