The Yes Men Fix the World

When American anti-corporate pranksters The Yes Men released their first documentary in 2004, I wasn’t convinced they were any more politically incisive than Ali G. This new compendium of the duo’s elaborate hoaxes from the past four years is more persuasive – and funnier too. The suited pair, who come across as performance artists as much as activists, pose as Exxon employees at a petroleum conference and introduce a new bio-fuel made from human flesh; they announce in New Orleans that all boarded-up housing projects will reopen a year after Katrina; they hand out a fake copy of The New York Times in New York, with stories born only of wishful thinking (‘Iraq War Ends’). You have to admire their ability both to pull off these stunts and to extract such honest expressions of greed from such corporate victims as the businessman who agrees that companies can justify deaths on the path to commercial success. Comic and creepy.