fwomp You might often hear the phrase "You've got to see this to believe it," and although I'm going to risk sounding like a cliché, you need to see this documentary to believe it.It isn't that THE YES MEN is some spectacularly put together documentary that'll blow your mind. It isn't. It's not filmed particularly well, and needed some help in the editing department (lingering on guys working on their computers is about as entertaining as watching paint dry).But the subject matter and the response by supposed "professionals" in the business world were so striking as to be baffling. Let me explain.This is the story of two geeks named Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum, The Yes Men. They are antiglobalization activists who've gone extreme in order to get their views across.Initially they set up a website that mirrored George W. Bush's, including placing some rather rude (if not true) commentary about our current Prez on the site. After having enough fun there, the two whizzes set their sights on The World Trade Organization, and put up a mirror site of it, too. But this time they went a bit further. Occasionally businesses from around the world would mistake their fake WTO website for the real one and would send our two pranksters invitations to meet and talk about WTO matters. This included a segment on CNN and then, later, to European countries where they set up outlandish topic discussions (including a huge phallic device used to monitor employees — employees who were somehow connected via slavery by Mike and Andy — and to stimulate certain gluteal muscle groups when things went right or wrong). What was astonishing was the acceptance of this device by the European country in question (sure, they all laughed when they saw it, but they didn't completely dismiss it either!).Our two WTO phonies finally get the response they wanted after visiting a college campus posing as WTO officials and sporting the idea of recycling human waste into poop-patties in order to help feed starving third world populations. FINALLY the college folks understood the mockery and threw things at Mike and Andy.It is a bit disturbing, however, that someone could pull-off such an incredible hoax. The ending, too, is astonishing; our two boys go to Australia and state that the WTO is shutting down and will be reinventing itself in a more humane fashion. This was picked up by numerous news agencies and sent around the media globe! Although interesting, disturbing, and flat-out hysterically funny in many portions, the documentary does lag when it shows our two main guys sleeping, playing with their computers, or other items that really bogged the story down and nearly brought it to a halt. But if you hang in there and watch the entire film, you'll be pleasantly — if not worriedly — surprised.

jerome_horwitz The Yes Men is a documentary of a group of pranksters who falsely assume the identities of World Trade Organization officials. The purpose of the group, The Yes Men, is to point out the lack of humanitarianism exhibited by those interested in world politics.The Yes Men are invited to speak at different functions around the globe masquerading as legitimate W.T.O. officials. To make they're point The Yes Men produce totally absurd concepts and presentations.The first conference covers how the W.T.O. views the future of the textile industry. The Yes Men come up with a concept for a business leisure suit. During the presentation, animations and an actual prototype suit worn by the fake speaker are used to demonstrate the possibilities. Describing the suit, it's shiny gold and skin tight, and has a large phallus shaped groin attachment which has a TV screen on it so a manager can monitor employees and stimulate them as necessary, all while doing leisure (aka "freedom") time activities. Unfortunately the audience at this conference doesn't appear to react at all to this totally absurd concept especially to the idea the poor workers need constant monitoring, and the wealthy management simply must have more leisure availability. It's like this is completely normal! The Yes Men next present a fake W.T.O. lecture on recycled feces burgers at a college in the U.S.A. Fortunately they finally meet some resistance to these outlandish ideas. One may wonder if this same concept had been introduced at the prior conference how would those people have reacted? This movie is a commentary on the current state of world trade, and how corporations run everything.The last conference has The Yes Men declaring the W.T.O. will be dissolving itself, basically due to it's inability to keep a humanitarian view regarding trade policies. The ironic thing is in post conference interviews, many of the attendees seem to agree with these basic self-accusations brought on by the W.T.O., against itself. One may wonder what happened to these folks that were duped, and how they're comments about a fake dissolving may have affected their lives personally or professionally?This movies is enjoyable as a satirical comedy with a message. However, we really don't learn that much about the details of these trade problems. Also as fun as it is to blame corporations. Corporations are run by people, and so is the W.T.O., and so are governments. Seems to me maybe they're focusing on the wrong problem.5/10

nobbytatoes Mike and Andy have set out to start making people think differently about the WTO; World Trade Organization. From what started as a prank website about the WTO, mutated into Mike and Andy appearing on TV and giving lectures to people who though they are apart of the WTO. With this mistaken identity, the send out false views of the WTO, showing people how flawed and corrupted the WTO is. With the use of their phallic leisure suit and an interesting idea about recycling human excrement to make new food for third world countries, they start getting people to think; they really stir the pot at times.This is a great doco showing how the little man can still make a difference. These two men have a lot of guts for what they do, and its amazing the haven't been stopped yet. They though set out to do a lot of pranks, this is the major flaw of the film, its not that deep in information. What they do is very intelligent, but they actually don't attack the WTO itself. It would have been if instead of showing their pranks show they showed them going to the WTO and attacked them personally. Another problem is that they ultimately don't make any real change. All the organizations still treat third world countries badly and they will still continue in this manor. The only other flaw is its too short. 80mins isn't a lot of time to get a message across and they could have input a lot more information, adding a lot more depth.But this film is more food for thought than being revelatory, it shows how things are, lifting the veil to show the hypocrisies of all developed countries and their so called help towards third world countries.The Yes Men is funny and very thought provoking.

jdollak I had been a little let down by the other reviews of this film, so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw it. It's true, the film is not perfect, there are a few problems and characteristics that would make it inaccessible for certain viewers.The first problem is that the pacing is awkwardly slow at certain points. Most of the walking around footage, conversation between the guys, all of the behind-the-scenes material just drags the pacing of the film down. The second problem is that the film requires people to listen carefully to what is being said. The individual sentences of some of their speeches might not sound too bad, but the are so carefully insinuating of the cruel nature of the message that it will slip past anyone who wants to be hit over the head with a point. The fact that we see so little straight talk in our politicians and from companies is the reason why they can get away with these sorts of things; we've learned to tune out their mumbo-jumbo.These two problems aside, I found their approach remarkably clever. Less blatant and less confrontive than Moore, these guys have a degree of class that is rarely seen in many satirists. The "disbanding" sequence has not been described well in these pages. The writing suggests that it is somehow pointless, but just because it isn't outrageous doesn't mean that there wasn't a point. Listen to the reporters - they'll let you know exactly what the point was.