Review of The Yes Men Fix the World (2009) by Gregory W — 30 Aug 2011

The merry pranksters "The Yes Men" are at it again - but this time their documentary is much cleaner and better produced than their 2003 original effort.

What can you say about these guys except hurrah! They take the establishment and point out the foibles so aptly - they dupe the BBC into believing that a Yes Man is a spokesperson for Dow Chemical (and therefore announcing on a BBC news talk show that Dow will be paying full restitution to the Indian community wrecked by the chemical spill of United Carbide 20 years earlier - Dow purchased UC 3 years before the film).

They further spoof Dow by becoming Dow's featured speakers at a corporate conference - claiming that they have perfected an algorhythm for determining acceptable human loss vs. corporate gains on any given project.

The list goes on, with them aiming at the post Katrina carpetbaggers amongst other things, but it is simply amazing how they manage to not only get away with pulling the wool over the eyes of politicos and middle management types, but so succinctly point out the enormous greed that has such an effect over just about everything. It is almost surreal, like watching an enormous spoof or black comedy... until you remember that this is the real deal - this stuff is actually happening and the Yes Men are out there trying to raise the common consciousness by lampooning the way big business thinks and acts.

As they say in the film - "we started out trying to fix the world, but our efforts seemed to have the opposite effect; so now we're aiming at simply drawing attention to the enormous farce that constitutes the way the world is run".