With poker faced impersonation as their weapon and World Trade Organization officials as their targets, The Yes Men pull off one bold prank after another in an effort to raise political consciousness.  And when their outrageous stunts are actually swallowed – hook, line and sinker – The Yes Men up the satirical ante and push the art of public spectacle to new heights.

Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum are The Yes Men.  Both of them came out of Corporate America, and they have been lampooning consumer America for years.  The early part of the film highlights some of their pranks, one of which involved G.I. Joe dolls that spouted Barbie phrases, and Barbie dolls that featured soldier talk.  From those early beginnings, they went on to found GWBUSH.com, a web site that lampooned then-presidential candidate George W. Bush.  Their site looked exactly like Bush’s real campaign site, except that it featured stories of cocaine abuse, his environmental record, and other little tidbits that Bush Co. would have surely rather kept quiet.  We see the reaction to this, and it is very interesting, not the least of which is video of Bush saying, “I think there should be limits to freedom.”

GWBUSH.com was quite successful, and The Yes Men set their sites a little higher.  They started their second web site, GATT.org, a take off on the World Trade Organization’s web site (GATT stands for the Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the agreement on which the WTO is founded).  Like GWBUSH.com, GATT.org was an almost exact copy of the WTO site, except that it was highly critical, full of examples of the negative effects of unregulated trade on the third world.  GATT was so convincing that The Yes Men were invited to speak at conferences on trade all over the world.  And that is where the film really begins.

If it were not there on video for all to see, it would be nearly impossible to believe that intelligent, educated, rational people would take seriously the absurd proposals made by The Yes Men, something that Bonanno and Bichlbaum are all too aware of.  When their presentations start to get coverage in Fortune magazine, The New York Times, and other widely read publications, the two are at a loss as to how it could be widely known that two men are going around lampooning the WTO, yet they are still invited to trade conferences all over the world.

The presentations made by The Yes Men are at the core of the film.  They are quite well done, very detailed and thought out, complete with props and Power Point presentations.  At a conference in Finland, as part of their presentation on the history of textiles, The Yes Men incorporate clips from D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, proclaim that the Union was wrong to invade the South and destroy their way of life, and lobby for the reinstitution of slavery.  There is more to the presentation, but rather than horrifying the crowd, their presentation makes the front page of the local paper, and the two are invited to dinner with some other high powered trade representatives at the conference.  This is one of many pranks Bonanno and Bichlbaum are able to pull off, and after making several well-known publications, they become the face of the WTO, which puts them in an awkward position.  When a conference is cancelled, it is both good and bad for them.  The lack of interest is seen as a good sign, but it is also one less outlet for them to get their message out.

This documentary features appearances by Michael Moore and journalist Greg Palast, but the pranks of The Yes Men are the real centerpiece.  “Prank” seems like in an inaccurate word to describe what they do; it is more like a subversive form of protest, using the field of trade as an opportunity to speak out against it.  When no one gets it, they keep getting more and more extreme, until they finally announce the disbanding of the World Trade Organization, something that is taken seriously and reported all over the world.  What is most shocking to see is the utter complacency and apathy of audiences around the world.  The most shocking, absurd statements get barely any reaction at all, and no one doubts them for a second.  We leave The Yes Men with their work unfinished, and with more questions than answers, which is how it is for Bonanno and Bichlbaum.  The Yes Men is absurdly comic and sad all at the same time.

The Yes Men is presented in the original 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  The transfer is crisp and captures the sharp quality of the original DV photography.

This DVD is presented in English Stereo Surround.  There is not a lot here to tax your sound system, but the presentation is solid, and the overall quality is crisp and clear.

Audio Commentary By “The Yes Men” Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, and With Directors Chris Smith, Dan Ollman, and Sarah Price: The filmmakers and their subjects talk about how they all met, how the film came together, and they give some details as to what was going on in certain scenes during the filming.

Deleted Scenes: Five scenes, all of which are interesting on their own, but it was probably for the best that they were cut.  They do not seem to fit in anywhere with the rest of the film.