Review of The Crooked E: The Unshredded Truth About Enron

This story of the Enron scandal is told from the standpoint of new employee Brian Cruver (it is never made clear whether he was a real person, but it doesn't really matter). Cruver learns quickly what is expected of Enron employees and how they can get rich. What he isn't told is that the people getting rich are doing it by falsifying numbers and making everything look good with future projected earnings. Cruver works in a department that has introduced a new kind of insurance: insurance against bankruptcy of a company or, say, one of its major customers. The question was probably never asked in real life but it is one of the many comments that seems humorous in light of the scandal's outcome: What if Enron goes bankrupt? Cruver becomes a real go-getter and, in one scene, it's really exciting to watch him pitch his product to a reluctant customer. Unfortunately, he is making it big at the expense of his relationship with his fiancee. He buys a big car, a big TV, everything he thinks he needs for happiness, with money he doesn't really have (just like Enron). He also takes his fiancee to a wild party; former strippers and skimpy dress seem all too common at this go-go-go company. Eventually, Cruver discovers that his superiors have been changing his numbers to make things look good, and while he is outraged, he doesn't really try to play the hero. Mike Farrell plays a bad guy for a change, Enron chairman Ken Lay, but he never comes across as a bad guy and is actually charming early in the movie but serious later. I was disappointed we didn't get to see him behind the scenes (the focus is really on the low-level employees); we were only shown his public face--his statements to the press and his speeches to employees--plus one scene with a whistleblower. I thought he did well in the role. An outstanding performance (as usual) was given by Brian Dennehy, who appears all too briefly as one of the top Enron employees and a friend of Cruver's father (though, ironically, he didn't seem to be behind Cruver's hiring). Two words you don't normally hear on network TV are spoken--one by the Enron CEO to the press, so apparently it is public record that he said it. Otherwise, that would have been gratuitous. (The word is repeated by a shocked Enron employee watching on TV). The other dirty word is spoken by Dennehy in a private conversation, though once the barrier has been broken, I guess anything goes. Overall, the language is not too bad. If you have been on Mars for two years the following is a SPOILER: Eventually everything at Enron must come crashing down. There are suspicions at first, some voiced by an old friend of Cruver's on Wall Street. Dennehy explains to Cruver, in that conversation where he used the bad word, that he knew about something that wasn't right. POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR ANYONE: In fact, Dennehy was transferred to a less desirable job, though he still believes he is going to prison, apparently because he didn't really press the issue. As the bottom drops out of everything, most of the employees shown in the movie have a lot to lose. DEFINITE SPOILERS: One unbelievably perky employee with a Southern accent welcomed the new employees early in the movie and can't be sad no matter what, and she is the one who tells everyone to leave when it's all over, still just as perky as ever, and she is one of the few who gets to stay. But don't worry about Cruver: at the very end, he still has his wife, and he realizes that's really the important thing.