Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)

97% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 116 reviews)

Runtime: 110 minutes

Directed by: Alex Gibney

Starring: The infamous people of Enron Corporation, narrated by Peter Coyote

From: Magnolia/2929 Entertainment/HDNet Films/etc.

Here is the time to talk about a documentary. It’s one I saw on the big screen in 2005 at a run-down theatre in Altamonte Springs, Florida, then I’ve seen later on DVD. I picked it up at the Blockbuster I’ve mentioned recently which is located by me and is closing down. I was there one time to get some DVD’s and Blu-Rays. Well, I decided a few days ago to visit the place a second time, and I got more DVD’s there, including this film.

It is a renowned documentary based on a book of the same name* and it tells you just what happened with the massive Enron Corporation and just how and why they managed to fail spectacularly. While it’s a tale full of complex transactions and incredibly sly number-spinning, the movie focuses on three people-Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and Andy Fastow-in particular and how their mindset allowed for rampant greed to run wild. Through the legal accounting trick of mark to market accounting-where they could book *potential earnings* on deals as soon as they could, and basically make up any number they want to-they appeared to be wildly successful when in actuality they were losing billions of dollars. When the stockmarket crashed they further got into trouble, and an initial article in Fortune Magazine by Bethany McLean-who wrote the book on the case along with Peter Elkind-started to focus attention on how shady Enron was. The stuff hit the fan in 2001, and from watching the movie, you’ll see what happened and why they finally crashed and burned.

• After I first saw the film, I ended up getting that book. It’s great stuff and says a whole lot more about the story. While the movie does a nice job streamlining the situation into a 110 minute block, the book is naturally more informative stating all of the stuff that went on, including some somewhat important people that don’t get mentioned in the film. I have it somewhere in my room and when I get around to cleaning my room one of these years… er, I mean days, I’ll keep it somewhere safe and I’ll read it again.

Sure, the movie may be too slick at times in its usage of random stock footage (I mean, for no reason at all you have strip club footage, with random topless strippers! Not that I’m complaining about bare boobs, but it was rather gratuitous), and random song usage (from Dusty Springfield to Marilyn Manson) it otherwise is important to see if you wish to better understand what happened with Enron, how the safeguards that were supposed to prevent rampant corporate greed and illegal acts from happening failed, and the effects that this had on the United States as a whole and to millions of individuals in particular. Of course reading that book, or any book on the case, or even the Wiki page on the scandal, but for a 2 hour recap of the situation, this works very well.

I’ll be back by Monday night with a new review. I plan on talking about a movie actually released in this calendar year of 2010.