"Independent Lens" Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Alex Gibney

Writers (WGA):

Bethany McLean (book) and
Peter Elkind (book) ...

TV Series:

"Independent Lens" (1999)

Original Air Date:

January 2005 (Season 8, Episode 22)

Genre:

Documentary

Tagline:

It's Just Business

Plot:

Corporate audio and videotapes tell the inside story of the scandal involving one company's manipulation of California's energy supply and its, and how its executives wrung a billion dollars out of the resulting crisis.

Plot Keywords:

California | Manipulation | Bush | Business | Suicide

Awards:

2 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

Peter Coyote	...	Narrator
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
John Beard	...	Himself
Barbara Boxer	...	Herself (archive footage)
George W. Bush	...	Himself
Jim Chanos	...	Himself
Dick Cheney	...	Himself
Bill Clinton	...	Himself (archive footage)
Carol Coale	...	Herself
Gray Davis	...	Himself
Reggie Dees II	...	Young man the stripper dances in front of (as Reggie Deets II)
Joseph Dunn	...	Himself
Max Eberts	...	Himself
Peter Elkind	...	Himself
Andrew Fastow	...	Himself
David Freeman	...	Himself
Philip Hilder	...	Himself
Al Kaseweter	...	Himself
Kenneth Lay	...	Himself
Jay Leno	...	Himself (archive footage)
Bill Lerach	...	Himself
Loretta Lynch	...	Herself
Amanda Martin-Brock	...	Herself
Bethany McLean	...	Herself
Mike Muckleroy	...	Himself
Reverend James Nutter	...	Himself
John Olson	...	Himself
Lou L. Pai	...	Himself
Kevin Phillips	...	Himself
David V. Porter	...	"David" a Quoted Enron Trader
Nancy Rapoport	...	Herself
Harvey Rosenfield	...	Himself
Marla Ruzicka	...	Herself (archive footage)
Arnold Schwarzenegger	...	Himself (archive footage)
Maria Shriver	...	Herself (archive footage)
Jeff Skilling	...	Himself
Mimi Swartz	...	Herself
Robert Traband	...	Himself
Sherron Watkins	...	Herself
Henry Waxman	...	Himself
Andrew Weissman	...	Himself
Colin Whitehead	...	Himself
Charles Wickman	...	Himself

Series Cast

These people are regular cast members. Were they in this episode?

Angela Bassett

...

Host

Also Known As:

"Independent Lens": Enron: Rise and Fall (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for language and some nudity.

Runtime:

109 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Ireland:15A | USA:R | Australia:M | Brazil:14 | Singapore:NC-16 | Australia:PG (TV rating) | Germany:o.Al. | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Houston, Texas, USA

Company:

HDNet Films

Trivia:

Among the protesters who disrupt the meeting with Jeff Skilling at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club is Marla Ruzicka, who was killed on 16 April 2005 in Iraq by a suicide bomber. She founded CIVIC (Campaign for Innocent Victims of Conflict) which worked to help the victims of the war in Iraq and she was a former Global Exchange activist.

Quotes:

Jeff Skilling: [comparing California to the Titanic] At least when the Titanic went down, the lights were on.

Movie Connections:

Features "The Simpsons" (1989)

Soundtrack:

That Old Black Magic

Energetic Hubris.

"Ask why" was the mantra of one of the most remarkable companies in the history of modern society: Enron. And not one, not even the venerable accounting firm of Arthur Anderson, asked that question. So the little energy company that could amassed billions of dollars through deceptive accounting practices, mainly by stating profit based on future earnings (HFV=hypothetical future value) and shipping losses to offshore shell companies.

Alex Gibney's absorbing documentary, based on the book co-authored by the first prominent whistle blower and Enron executive, Bethany McLean, begins with the tragic concept of the pervasive fatal flaw, hubris, and applies it meticulously to the tragic figures Ken Lay, Andrew Skilling, and Andrew Fastow. Tragic in the sense that those talented executives allowed the company to fall while they lined their pockets with the assets of its 20, 000 employees, countless investors, and the state of California, which suffered mammoth losses due to its new energy deregulation and manipulation of that energy by Enron.

The documentary succeeds in explaining the crimes while lacing the story with just enough drama to make suspenseful the outcome we all know before we view the film: Fastow is doing time, Lay and Skilling await trial, former employees work past their retirement ages because their pensions have been gobbled up by the crimes, and California now regulates its energy but still suffers from massive deficit.

The documentary fails when it manipulates its audience with background songs that dramatize the obvious ironies, e.g.' "Son of a Preacher Man" plays during Lay's biography. Such skewering is almost impossible to avoid once a documentarian picks up a camera and selects the images; what he doesn't have to do is underscore the irony—The players will do it all on their own. It also seems to hold back on the cozy relationship between Lay and the Bush family. Perhaps another time.

Meanwhile, this documentary is compelling viewing of a tragedy about a company, as one of the talking heads describes, that was "a house of cards . . . built over a pool of gasoline." It is enjoyable to see it figuratively torched like the House of Wax.