The phenomenon of identity theft, where criminals impersonate people to steal from them is fairly well known.

What about identity correction? What if some people were to impersonate criminals and try to represent/ misrepresent their views to the world? Mike and Andy, the "Yes Men", are identity correctors and came up with the website www.gatt.org, a parallel website as a spoof to the WTO's official one (www.wto.org).

The site looks genuine enough to fool anyone on a casual glance. It was at this website that a television producer with CNBC Marketwrap Europe invited a representative of the WTO to debate with an anti globalization activist on live TV. The "WTO" sent "Granwyth Hulatberi" . "Hulatberi agrees with the activist on his statistical facts but adds the "WTO's" view point : "Might makes right and the rich are right because they have power, and the poor are wrong because they don't"

The movie, The Yes Men documents this visit and several other visits of "WTO representatives", exposing the wrongs of the WTO, in a satirical fashion. They agree with critics that this organization is all about: exploiting and arm twisting poor nations and making the wealthy few even wealthier.

At each conference they get invited to, the Yes Men get bolder, testing the boundaries of their audience, suggesting increasingly preposterous measures the "WTO" is thinking of implementing to help it attain its goals, hoping to elicit some reaction, some realization of how illogical and dangerous this organization can be, some "are you out of your mind!" outburst from their audience of intellectuals, policy makers and students.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable film. One must keep in mind though, that this documentary is not an in-depth look at what is wrong about the WTO though it does talk about some of the problems.

Neither does this film suggest concrete alternatives to WTO, though Mike and Andy do talk about the principles upon which this organization should be based: basic humanity, social justice and not always looking at the bottom line.

The Yes Men ask "Is satire more fun than reality?" The film certainly does answer that question, leaving one wishing if only real life was as much fun…

The film is available for rent at indy- movie video rental stores and also can be purchased from amazon.com or from the yes men website, www.theyesmen.org

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Meet the Indian Farmer
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