Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Alex Gibney

Writers:

Peter Elkind (writer)
Alex Gibney (writer)

Release Date:

9 March 2006 (Netherlands)

Genre:

Documentary

Tagline:

Come see where all your money went.

Plot:

A documentary about the Enron corporation, its faulty and corrupt business practices, and how they led to its fall.

Plot Keywords:

Enron | Greed | Corporation | California | Accounting

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Peter Coyote	...	Narrator
Joe Lingold	...	Energy Trader
Michael Lugenbuehl	...	Cliff Baxter
Mark Salzberg	...	Croupiers

Runtime:

USA:110 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Certification:

USA:Not Rated | Australia:M

Company:

Jigsaw Productions

Quotes:

Jeffrey Skilling: Oh I can't help myself. You know what the difference between the state of California and Titanic? And this is being webcast, and I know I'm going to regret this - at least when the Titanic went down, the lights were on.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Wargames: The Dead Code (2008) (V)

Even more chilling now

Enron was the US energy company that "Fortune" named as "America's Most Innovative Company" for six consecutive years and, at its height, it employed 22,000 people and claimed revenues of around $100 billion. It went bankrupt at the end of 2001 and this documentary was released in 2005, but I did not see it until four years later. By then, we had experienced 'the end of capitalism as we've known it' and the most serious collapse in financial markets since the Wall Street Crash. What Enron and the wider market crash have in common is the murky world of derivatives, an excessive exuberance for risk, and simple avarice and hubris, while the mother and father of both crises are deregulation.

Alex Gibney co-wrote, co-produced and directed this work which, though occasionally complex, is compelling viewing and a lesson to us all on corporate greed and regulatory failure. Interviews with key observers and extracts from Congressional hearings are linked by a narration from Peter Coyote. The heroines of the story are Bethany McLean, the financial journalist who first questioned the valuation of Enron, and Sherron Watkins, the senior manager who blew the whistle on the company. The villains are a long list of men headed by Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay and Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling. Maybe there is a gender lesson here as well - as many financial and political ones.