The execs are labeled “ex-nerds” and are repeatedly compared to a clique of popular high school students who terrorize their school. The company’s top dogs are simplistically characterized as completely brutal, heartless, and immature. Of all the insiders interviewed, not one comes from the Lay or Skilling camps.
Unfortunately, the documentary leaves the viewer feeling that he’s only heard half the story. Exciting scenes that get to the core of the villainy involved include Ken Lay joking about the California energy crisis, Enron traders talking about ripping off grandmothers, and a bizarre “video Valentine” from both Presidents Bush to former Enron President Jeffrey Skilling. The journalistic bent of the film is apparent in the filmmaker’s acquisition of internal memos, audio recordings and video footage that stand out as particularly worthwhile.īut the fun goes beyond bare investigation. The film is told almost entirely through testimonials, featuring interviews with everyone from a California blue-collar worker who saw his pension fund raided to former Enron VPs.
The smartest guys in the room movie trial#
Top executives, such as CEO Ken Lay, are currently under house arrest and await trial next January.Īs most of the audience going to this type of documentary comes in to the theater knowing the conclusion, the film focuses on the people rather than the numbers, casting the entire story as a “human tragedy.” With careful attention to detail, “Enron” documents the stories of the fresh young traders corrupted by the system, the trusting investors fleeced for all they were worth, and the executives possessed of a seemingly bottomless greed. The film is a relatively straightforward account of the rise and fall of Enron, the infamous energy company whose top executives carted away hundreds of millions while their investors and employees lost billions. Anyone hoping to further understand the working of the stock market will not be any smarter by the end.The words “economic documentary” and “sexy good time” are rarely used to describe the same movie, and despite a brief tribute to one executive’s stripper fetish, Alex Gibney’s “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” continues this trend. However, lacking interviews by the bigwigs involved (Skilling, Lay and Fastow), Gibney's documentary lacks the necessary bite and did himself no favours when he refuses to interview, bar one, the ordinary person on the street who are the real victims of Enron. This film is more than a working class hero cursing the corporate fat cats as it tries to get inside the minds of the men behind the disgrace and tries to discover how they could live with themselves despite ruining thousands of families and small businesses. Bush, Chief CEO Jeff Skilling was the main perpetrator in creating the illusion that Enron was a profitable and viable business venture while Enron was simultaneously plummeting further and further into massive debt. With close ties to both George Bush and George W. In early 2001, Enron boasted profits of something near $70 billion but 24 days later it declared bankruptcy. Based on the best selling book by Fortune magazine reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, this film chronicles the biggest business scandal and worst corporate disaster in American history which saw its top executives walk away with millions while investors and employees were left with less than nothing. Alex Gibney's Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room is next in line. From Michael Moore's Roger And Me, Bowling For Columbine and Fahrenheit 911, through Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me, to Robert Greenwald's Outfoxed and Wal-Mart: The High Price Of Low there is with each passing year a wealth of filmmakers lining up to further damn the country of their birth.
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