Review of The Yes Men (2003) by Trevor K — 15 Sep 2006

The Yes Men.

Starring: Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlebaum.

Director: Dan Ollman and Sally Price.

"The Yes Men" is a chronicles the prep and execution of the last three scams/stunts by a group hoaxers devoted to calling attention of the problematic and ultimately harmful nature of much of what globalization movements like The World Trade Organization is trying to acheive.

The ideas behind the stunts are pretty amusing, and these hoaxers aren't ones that one can get irritated with because they're wasting other people's time and money... they are invited to the events and/or talk shows they appear on (falsely passing themselves off as representatives for the WTO) by producers and organizers too inattentive to realize they aren't dealing with the real WTO.

Unfortunately, the film ultimately puts the hoaxers in a bad light. They come off as arrogant and entirely too self-congratulatory given the amateurish level their activities actually run at. Their biggest stunt in the film--the introduction at a conference in Finland of the "worksuit of the future"--has glitches in it that occur partially due to bad planning and not enough lead-time. (Why are they rushing to get everything ready in an apartment in Paris some 48 hours before the conference? The film doesn't make this clear, and I don't see why some of the things there rushing to get done weren't almost finished at that late date.).

Their contempt for the groups they are hoaxing is also off-putting to me. I've been to a couple of conferences where insane people were adressing the crowd. I've sat on panels with insane people, and people who express ideas that are as far out in left field as those proposed by The Yes Men... and unless you're actively pushing the buttons of those attending the lecture, the response is usually a polite one. The Yes Men seemed to think the lack of response, or laughter, indicated acceptance of the whacky viewpoints they put forth; reaction shots of the Finnish audience belies this.

There are some chuckles in this film, and it does provide some interesting insights into the organization of a hidden camera-type stunt, but those upsides are undermined by the general unlikability of the Yes Men themselves. Although, I suppose if you love Michael Moore movies and check the Daily KOS every day, maybe you'll find something in this movie that escaped me.