“The Yes Men Fix the World” DVD Review
Borat meets Michael Moore in this wicked satire where legendary mischief-makers the Yes Men pull off hilarious pranks to counter the culture of greed and fix the world. THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD “shines with a raw wit and originality” (Newsweek) as it fearlessly follows the twisted logic of corporate capitalism to its crazy conclusion, exposing the hilarious and awful absurdities of the economic system that ruthlessly rules the planet. The documentary, arriving April 1st from docurama films, will come packed with extras as well as the documentary itself which has earned such quotations as “A BusinessWeek version of Punk’d. The stunts are exhilarating.” (Time Out New York) and “Outrageously Entertaining!” (New York Magazine).
Synopsis
A wickedly fun skewering of corporate greed, THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD is the true story of two conscientious mischief-makers who pose as the representatives of companies they despise. In this wonderfully therapeutic film, Yes Men Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno impose cosmic (and comic) justice by any means necessary. To a television audience of 300 million, Andy (posing as a Dow Chemicals spokesman) announces that Dow will finally compensate the victims of the Bhopal disaster, causing the company’s stock to instantly plunge by $2 billion. At an oil industry conference, the Yes Men introduce a wonderful new Exxon miracle fuel made from the bodies of global warming losers.
There’s a limit to how much I can believe on DVD covers anymore, but the Punk’d quote above is…really, really accurate. As with most of these (ok, all) of these docurama entries over the past few months, I’d never heard of it before watching it so I was completely oblivious as to what to expect from it. But, as is usual with these documentaries, this one was not only informative but also highly entertaining and perhaps best of all…it was funny. I enjoy my news and enlightenment of the goings on of the world to be presented to me with satire, as it not only tends to inform you with a mixture of analogies and the like but also make you laugh along the way. This is probably why I’m such a fan of Comedy Central’s 11pm – midnight block of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
The Yes Men really is a fantastic documentary since it informs as well as entertains. The “stunts” pulled in it are not only humorous but also show the power that a single statement can have on the stock market. The segment with Andy on the Dow was shocking, but I’ve seen similar things happen to company stock by erroneous postings online (there was one concerning Apple a year or so ago on a tech blog that, just based on that one post, sent Apple shares plummeting for a few hours before it recovered after it was found out to be a hoax), so I wish I could be surprised that such things are so easily influenced by the media.
Although a scant eighty-seven minutes in length, the documentary has more than enough meat to it to keep you coming back even for a second round to witness the hilarity once again. The extras on the disc help out too, although they aren’t quite as plentiful as one would hope (no commentary? Boo!) but either way this is definitely a documentary to check out. Recommended.
The DVD
The documentary arrives in a standard DVD amaray case with an insert advertising other docurama films and nothing else. Video is fine, but it can get a tad bit fuzzy at times…nothing too major though and certainly nothing to hinder ones enjoyment of it. It packs a standard Dolby Digital Stereo track, which provides us with clean and clear dialogue from start to finish.
Extras include:
Deleted Scenes (9:29)
Additional actions and videos (69 minutes)
Theatrical Trailers (Three Total, 7 minutes)
Filmmaker Biographies
Yes…there really are enough extras here to almost rival the running time of the documentary itself. Hell, the “Additional” and “Deleted” bits are almost another documentary in of themselves (an entirely un-cohesive one, but one nonetheless) which makes this disc worth checking out for the extras alone. They aren’t quite up to par with the rest of the bits included in the main documentary, but they’re still very, very entertaining in their own right.
Overall this is a Recommended disc—it’s worth watching the documentary once or twice, plus the extras are great as well. Even if you don’t watch it again, you can pass it on to friends to check out as well, so it’s a win-win either way.
The Yes Men Fix the World arrives on DVD on April 1st.