Sexylocher Masterful Movie

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Those who can't do . . . critique Wow, to read the negative reviews on this site is a sad experience. (the positive ones are great of course). To realize how many people don't get the humor in this film -- it's just way over their heads, apparently (yes, even the brilliantly used "potty" humor) -- and to see how many Americans are sitting around criticizing the VERY FEW among us who are the most active, courageous, daring and funny . . . you people need to take a good look in the mirror.What are YOU doing to expose the hideous corruption and lies and power imbalances endemic in our society? What are YOU doing to entertain people, to create really damn funny films on a small budget that inspire people to get off their asses and act? (and yes, the Yes Men films inspire a LOT of people).Self proclaimed film critics are always among society's most useless and insipid, but in this case, the people griping at the Yes Men for not providing them with an activist film up to their personal standards need to seriously rethink the use of their time in this life.Thank you, Mike and Andy, for giving us some huge laughs and showing us that even two regular guys can stir up the pot for the betterment of humanity.

jerome_horwitz The Yes Men is a documentary of a group of pranksters who falsely assume the identities of World Trade Organization officials. The purpose of the group, The Yes Men, is to point out the lack of humanitarianism exhibited by those interested in world politics.The Yes Men are invited to speak at different functions around the globe masquerading as legitimate W.T.O. officials. To make they're point The Yes Men produce totally absurd concepts and presentations.The first conference covers how the W.T.O. views the future of the textile industry. The Yes Men come up with a concept for a business leisure suit. During the presentation, animations and an actual prototype suit worn by the fake speaker are used to demonstrate the possibilities. Describing the suit, it's shiny gold and skin tight, and has a large phallus shaped groin attachment which has a TV screen on it so a manager can monitor employees and stimulate them as necessary, all while doing leisure (aka "freedom") time activities. Unfortunately the audience at this conference doesn't appear to react at all to this totally absurd concept especially to the idea the poor workers need constant monitoring, and the wealthy management simply must have more leisure availability. It's like this is completely normal! The Yes Men next present a fake W.T.O. lecture on recycled feces burgers at a college in the U.S.A. Fortunately they finally meet some resistance to these outlandish ideas. One may wonder if this same concept had been introduced at the prior conference how would those people have reacted? This movie is a commentary on the current state of world trade, and how corporations run everything.The last conference has The Yes Men declaring the W.T.O. will be dissolving itself, basically due to it's inability to keep a humanitarian view regarding trade policies. The ironic thing is in post conference interviews, many of the attendees seem to agree with these basic self-accusations brought on by the W.T.O., against itself. One may wonder what happened to these folks that were duped, and how they're comments about a fake dissolving may have affected their lives personally or professionally?This movies is enjoyable as a satirical comedy with a message. However, we really don't learn that much about the details of these trade problems. Also as fun as it is to blame corporations. Corporations are run by people, and so is the W.T.O., and so are governments. Seems to me maybe they're focusing on the wrong problem.5/10

JohnSelf I was impressed with the elaborate pranks and that they were able to at least look like they were giving competent presentations. That was it. The rest of it was fairly stupid. One of the first big jokes centers around a presentation made in Finland about a ridiculous phallic employee monitoring device. I suppose we were supposed to find humor in the fact that the Finns failed to react. I think it showed more about the ignorance and stupidity of the Yes Men than the audience. Even if they hadn't pulled out the giant penis thing, I'm sure the audience wouldn't have asked any questions about the WTO's plan to monitor employees. No doubt the audience knew that the WTO would never become involved in something like that, and I can imagine it would be fairly typical for a group of Europeans to remain quiet about an American making an ass of himself in public. The most frustrating thing I found was that all the pranks that were meant to satire the WTO missed the mark completely. The Yes Men seemed to be completely uninformed about what the WTO does. I'm not sure how you can satirize something if you don't understand it. It would be sort of like making "Spinal Tap" based upon lives of circus performers. The WTO simply doesn't become involved in individual corporations, like McDonald's. So, while the idea of reconstituted feces being sold as food may be slightly amusing, it's irrelevant to the operations of the WTO, which is problematic if you're trying to poke fun at the them. In general, it's pretty much run-of-the-mill uninformed arguments you usually hear from people that denounce organizations like the World Bank or IMF with some pranks thrown in to entertain. Knee jerk liberalism with a twist, in other words. Which in my book, is equally as asinine as those that buy whatever FOX News or W is selling. On the plus side, if you don't know anything about the WTO or other cultures, you might find this amusing.

loganbell It's a shame the filmmakers do not have the same talents as the yes men. WHile the pranks are supreme -- intelligent, insightful and clever -- the same cannot be said for this movie. Instead of giving us insight into what makes these pranksters tick, the film dilly dallies for what seems like hours over the fact the fact that the yes men miscalculated the time zone (!) in Finland. In a word: Who cares about the time zone?! But, alas, the film treads water for ages. But worse than that is the fact that the movie has no sense of irony, no joie de vivre and no fun. It's just a badly made doc about an interesting subject.For people who want to see a film that makes a great uber-prank on pranksters big and small, my recommendation is the Anarchist Cookbook.