06/16/06 The Yes Men

The Yes Men (2003), directed by Dan Ollman, Sarah Price & Chris Smith

watched w/ Leslie; DVD rental (Blockbuster) @ Bonnaroo: Camp Clubber Lang (Manchester, TN); suggested by Mike

This is hilarious, ingenious and ballsy all at the same time. This takes political activism to a whole other realm via the information age...or rather the disinformation age. "The Yes Men" consist of two college-buddies and prankster activists Andy and Mike, who decide that they will create their own version of a website in order to mock & mimic the World Trade Organization (WTO). Having no public input on the goings-on of this global economic trade forum, the two men take it upon themselves to represent a dissension amongst the ranks of public opinion, and basically "stick it to the man." What they didn't expect is that their well-done satiric website (www.gatt.org) was so close in resemblance to the actual WTO website (www.wto.org), that it garnered international responses & requests for a WTO representative to come and lecture at various conferences and television debates. So, what else would a political prankster do but to carry the ruse further and impersonate said WTO representatives to get their own message across. Being mistaken all over well-respected mediums, these two guys Andy & Mike take own crafted personas to fool everyone they come in contact with, while enlisting the help of their creative computer geek friends to pull off the stunts. Some stunts include going to a college lecture hall and trying with a straight face to pass across the idea of marketing a "re-burger" system of recycling eaten & excreted hamburgers in developed countries in order to re-make the burgers and sell them to impoverished countries for less, while still making more profits! Yes, they get a very cold reception. Another stunt is one where they try to introduce to a business conference a way for management to supervise their illegal factory workers from afar by wearing a breakaway suit that holds under it a bright gold jumpsuit with an inflatable phallic apparatus with a TV monitor on it for viewing! Yeah, they fall for it. The balls it takes for these guys to keep the charade up, do it creatively, and convince many in a not so subtle way what big-time organizations like the WTO do can often become corrupted. Oh yeah, and they take it upon themselves to decide the disbanding of the entire organization & restructure it...do you think it will really happen?! These guys get an "A" for effort

5 out of 5 stars