Just returned from a screening of “The Yes Men Fix The World” at the VanCity Theatre (still playing through Thursday; click here for tickets). It’s an absolute thumbs-up from me – by all means go see it if you have a chance. In the best guerilla-media tradition, these two merry pranksters point out the hypocrisy, treachery and evil endemic in the corporate world with only one weapon in their arsenal – humour. Posing as corporate or government officials, they propose things that are either preposterous (a bulbous “survival suit” for profiting from global disasters), amoral (making fuel out of the victims of global warming), or so downright moral they would never happen, due to the negative effect on the bottom line (full compensation and medical coverage for the Bhopal disaster victims). The media, in most cases, swallow their carefully-planned story whole. Ironically, once they realize they’ve been duped, they often ask the duo back for another interview, where they directly discuss the point they were making satirically the first time. The result is a curious mix of uproarious laughs and fist-shaking anger at a corporate mindset that sees anything that helps the bottom line as worthwhile – or at least worth considering. Some reviewers have implied that the reactions of those being “pranked” is so accepting and matter-of-fact that it undercuts the humour and fails to provide the needed “punch line”. That didn’t seem to be the case to me – there were many shots of seminar attendees’ faces showing a slowly dawning realization that something was amiss. The result was a uniquely satisfying kind of laughter that rolle through the VanCity theatre audience regularly. And just as transfixing to see was the reaction of those that seemed to be accepting the Yes Men’s nonsense at face value, one corporate type saying that “if people have to die anyway, you might as well make some money.” It made for laughter of a more chilly kind to see that sort of flat-out greed caught on (hidden) camera. As they turn their focus from corporations to the government, the film’s larger theme – that of a critique of capitalism itself – is driven home. The pursuit of profit, unfettered by government oversight, leads unsurprisingly to abuses and utterly counterproductive actions, like HUD, the U.S. government’s department charged with providing housing, actually tearing down people’s (perfectly usable) homes in New Orleans, ensuring more homelessness. The film is well-paced and structured. After a series of vignettes that are humorous but disheartening (for the blatantly immoral corporate behaviour on display), the film ends with a delightful stunt that gives one at least a small sense of hope, imagining a world as it could be. So by all means run, don’t walk, to see “The Yes Men Fix The World”. You’ll laugh, you’ll cringe, you’ll laugh again. And you’ll be reminded why humour is still a feared weapon among the powerful.