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MOVIE: Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room
Starring Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling
Written by Bethany MacLean and Peter Elkind
Directed by Alex Gibney (Magnolia Pictures)
Reviewed by Rusty Pipes
Ho hum, another liberal left documentary, don't those guys have anything better to do? I guess they don't as long as rapacious CEO's keep setting records for bankruptcies like Enron did.
This film is the story of the rise and fall of Enron, the company that was once the 7th largest in the nation and became worthless in less than a year. The title comes from the fact that for years all of Wall street thought Enron was staffed by the some of the best financial minds in the country -- Jeff Skilling, Andrew Fastow and of course Ken "Kenny Boy" Lay -- who were so respected they were given the nickname "the Smartest Guys In The Room."
There's plenty of emotion here, from unbridled greed to remorse, and even suicide, in this riveting story. Another interesting thing about the material is that there is so much of it. It clearly shows the duplicitous nature of Enron's operations, their gaming of the political system, and the craven actions of their leaders to cashier as much as they could as things fell apart. Perhaps the most powerful section is the tapes of Enron energy traders engaging in a conspiracy to artificially blackout parts of California, but there is also plenty of footage of the principles on junkets, making pep speeches to the workers and carousing with once and future Presidents named Bush.
Director Alex Gibney has made sure the story is made easy enough -- though in some parts a basic course in economics might help the average viewer understand the basic mechanism of their fraud -- to understand that Enron could book profit before they had actually received any money.
Too bad it wasn't released before the election, but it is easily the best documentary so far this year.
The Skinny:
Did I enjoy the movie? Instructive and chilling isn't exactly enjoyment.
Would I go to see it again? Probably getting a DVD just to see the extra material and to use it for research.
© 2005 - Rusty Pipes