The film revolves around "The Yes Men" — two anti-globalization activists, under the aliases Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno — who impersonate spokespeople for the WTO and affiliated corporations in order to secretly lampoon and satirize these organizations with elaborate ruses and fraudulent announcements of ridiculous corporate decisions, in front of live, unsuspecting audiences (usually comprising businesspeople, university student bodies, and the press).

The film details the two activists' involvement in hoaxes targeting SimCopter, the 2000 G. W. Bush presidential campaign, McDonald's, and, most prominently, the WTO.

The website's consensus reads: "Shining a spotlight on activists as unorthodox as they are entertaining, The Yes Men proves advocating for social change can be seriously funny.

"[1] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 68 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

[2] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave it 3 out of 5 stars and called the film "Subversive and diabolically funny.