Film Review: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

[jester710]

A chronicle of the meteoric rise and fall of one of America's most prestigious companies, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is a documentary that takes a convoluted story and somehow makes it both simple and enthralling.

I wanted to see this film mainly because I was largely ignorant about the details of the Enron case. I knew it was a big deal, and I knew why, but I really didn't know what the hell had happened. I knew that in order to resolve this, I must either educate myself by slogging through the mountains of media reports on the case, or watch a two hour documentary. Hoping for a School House Rock -style funride, I chose the latter. While I can't say that the film resembled SHR in any way, I am happy to report that it contained boobs and a clip from The Simpsons. That's two thumbs up right there.

The Enron story is far too intricate to sum up here, as the corporation's shady dealings began essentially at its inception in the mid-'80s and continued basically non-stop into late 2001. As the film lays out the actions of Enron execs, I found myself cursing them for their arrogance, laughing at their audacity, and hurting for their employees. It's amazing how many incredibly incriminating moments were captured on tape by the criminals themselves, such as a video the Enron execs made that spoofed the fraudulent accounting practices they used to inflate their stock prices. It's almost as if Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling wanted to make the prosecution's case as open-and-shut as possible when the house of cards came tumbling down.

One of the most poignant moments of the movie chronicles an Oregon electric company linesman who lost his life savings, as he had to watch his 401k drop from over $325,000 to $1500. Conversely, there are many more moments that will make your blood boil, such as when they play tapes of Enron traders joking about bilking grandmothers out of their life savings in order to pay artificially-inflated power bills.

At its core, though, the film is about the gargantuan egos of a few men who believed they could outsmart the system. Lay, Skilling, and CFO Andrew Fastow. While greed certainly played a part in their actions, the film argues that a major underlying motivation was the desire to prove that they were simply better than everyone else. It's reminiscent of the Hitchcock film Rope, in which two men commit murder as an intellectual exercise.

The filmmakers had a massive amount of dynamite information at their fingertips, and they piece it together masterfully.
Watching the film not only gave me a much greater understanding of what happened with Enron, it also made me empathize with and share the outrage felt by so many. When I had first heard that Lay and Skilling faced the possibility of life in prison, I thought it seemed a bit excessive. After watching this, however, I can't help but think that it's not enough.

If you want a better understanding of the Enron scandal, or just want to watch an extremely well-crafted documentary on the subject, then this is the film for you. If you just want to see the boobs, though, then I can't help you.

(Oh, alright....2 minutes and 35 seconds into track 6.)

[challenger84]

Good review, I think every kid in business school should be required to watch this movie.

[maddog2030]

I didn't read the whole review, but I definitely agree this was a very interesting documentary. Highly recommended.

[ QUOTE ]
Good review, I think every kid in business school should be required to watch this movie.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here at VT I know they show it in one of their management classes. Actually a friend who saw it in class was the one who recommended it to me.