How will you spend your Thanksgiving break?
Before Sasha Baron Cohen graced the world with a film version of his popular character Borat, Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum released a documentary titled "The Yes Men." The film followed the two as they posed as CEOs of major companies and infiltrated various conferences, presenting phony ideas about corporate ethics and improving the environment.
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Most of the time they were caught, but it was still funny to see that people were dim-witted enough to believe the absurd proposals the CEOs would outline.
"The Yes Men Fix the World" is their second film, and it's essentially more of the same — but that's not necessarily a bad thing. This time, Mike and Andy focus their pranks on exposing companies that are profiting from Hurricane Katrina and other disasters, up to and including the chemical plant explosion in Bhopal, India. Their misadventures take them from London to Paris to the American South, where they dupe pretty much everyone from the BBC to Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans.
While their pranks are extremely childish (candles made out of "human flesh," anyone?), Mike and Andy lack the crude humor that Sasha Baron Cohen brings to the table in "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" and "Brüno." This lack of an underlying desire to offend the audience makes "The Yes Men" a more clear-cut, focused and entertaining satire. Mike and Andy are consistently funny and their film's tight runtime doesn't include many flat jokes or sequences. This is the rare satire that is entertaining without forgetting to be informative.
Though it's doubtful that "The Yes Men" will ever reach the level of notoriety that "Borat" and "Brüno" have, their commentary outshines both Sasha Baron Cohen films in terms of creativity and subject matter. Let Borat and Brüno run around making crude jokes and dancing in their underwear; the Yes Men are busy fixing the world, one prank at a time.
