MOVIE REVIEW: ‘The Yes Men Fix the World’

Hot on the heels of Michael Moore’s anti-market screed “Capitalism: A Love Story” comes “The Yes Men Fix the World.”

The Yes Men are a pair of pranksters-with-a-purpose who stage media stunts like impersonating representatives from major capitalist entities (Dow Chemical Co., the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) and giving speeches at conferences under false pretenses. Their goal is to raise awareness of corporate malfeasance and inspire the masses to rise up against the running dogs of imperialism.

“The Yes Men Fix the World” is like a highlight reel of Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno’s pranks over the last decade. They have pretended to be, variously, a representative of Dow on BBC, representatives of engineering firm (and liberal punching bag) Halliburton at a conference and an undersecretary of Housing and Urban Development after Hurricane Katrina.

What, exactly, their antics have accomplished is unclear. The only tangible result shown in this documentary is their erasing of about $2 billion of value in Dow after the aforementioned BBC appearance. Announcing that Dow was liquidating Union Carbide Corp. and distributing $12 billion to remedy the Bhopal chemical-plant disaster, the pair caused chaos in the stock market for a brief moment.

But Dow’s stock rebounded after the hoax was revealed, and everyone went on with their lives. That one real-world effect was fleeting, at best.

Trying to guess at the pair’s goal with this movie is an interesting exercise. Do the Yes Men expect audiences to recoil in horror at the callousness of the business world? Maybe — but nothing they show is particularly horrific.

Are we to be offended, for example, that businessmen didn’t storm out of their clever and funny pitch for a new risk-management software? That seems to be their intent, and surely some knee-jerk progressives will cluck their tongues and shake their heads — but in the real world, most will simply shrug.

Maybe that’s their point: We’re so inured to the idea that people can be reduced to a dollar sign that we’re no longer shocked by the idea of a corporation placing profit above human lives.

Capitalism has its faults — congratulations, Yes Men, on that insight. But what’s the alternative — socialism? For an answer, look up “Twentieth century, history of command economies in.”

In the end, this is a movie that does little more than preach to the converted. It’s mildly amusing at times, but ultimately pointless. The Yes Men’s childish naivete and their ahistorical (not to mention economically illiterate) calls for nationalization of the oil industry to fund government programs will certainly charm ignorant teenagers and aging hippies.

But if the Yes Men think it’s going to sway those in the corridors of power, then the joke’s on them.

★½
TITLE: “The Yes Men Fix the World”
RATING: Unrated (nothing objectionable, except economic ignorance)
CREDITS: Written, produced and directed by Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno
RUNNING TIME: 87 minutes
WEB SITE: http://theyesmenfixtheworld.com/