Don't be surprised if you find yourself throwing things at the screen while watching "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," a brilliantly effective and meticulously researched documentary (based on the book by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind) that is guaranteed to get both your dander and your adrenaline up to dangerously high levels.
Rarely does a real life event provide us with as clear and universally recognized a symbol of a larger social theme as does the fall of Enron, which, in the years since it happened, has come to stand for everything that's wrong with corporate America. It is the classic tale of corruption and unethical behavior performed in the service of unbridled greed. That the men responsible for the disaster took so many innocent people down with them is what makes it a tragedy. In fact, more than one person interviewed for the film draws the parallel between the downfall of Enron and the sinking of the Titanic - an apt analogy if ever there was one, only, in this case, the captains had no intention of going down with the ship, preferring instead to ruthlessly knock over any number of helpless women and children in the desperate race to the lifeboats.
The beauty of the film is that it takes a very complex and convoluted story and makes it completely comprehensible to those of us who might otherwise get lost in the maze of arcane corporate-world details. The movie introduces us to the key players - primarily CEOs Jeffrey Skilling and Ken Lay, and CFO Andrew Fastow - showing the step-by-step process by which they built the energy corporation virtually from scratch, raised it to the position of seventh largest company in the world, then slowly destroyed it through deceit, hubris and greed - but not, of course, before bestowing obscene multi-million dollar packages on themselves as compensation. We see how they employed little more than smoke-and-mirror accounting schemes to pull the wool over the eyes of investors, regulatory commissions and fellow employees. However, the film makes it clear that a large number of "reputable" banks and loan agencies must also have been complicit in the company's malfeasance for all of this to have come off so effectively.
As always, it is the "little guy" who winds up getting shafted. Probably the greatest hair-pulling section of the film involves Enron's cold-blooded creation and manipulation of California's bogus "energy crisis" in the early 2000's, which drained billions from the state's treasury, a situation which the newly elected President Bush, ever sympathetic to his buddies in the energy business, refused to help rectify. Just as bad is the CEOs' callous encouragement of their own lower level employees to invest their retirement savings in the company's 401K plan that the chief executives themselves knew would soon be defunct. With hissable villains like these around, who needs fiction? The sole consolation is the fact that the system did work in the end, that the wrongdoers eventually overreached to such an extent that the house of cards they had built finally came tumbling down. There's certainly a great deal of joy in seeing the creeps responsible for the catastrophe being carted off to jail in handcuffs and sweating under the public scrutiny of a congressional investigative committee. (It should be noted that the film predates Ken Lay's death in 2006). The movie also balances the case by highlighting some of the "heroes" in the story, primarily whistleblowers within the company and a resourceful reporter for FORTUNE magazine who was the first to hint in a public forum that Enron might just be the corporate equivalent of the emperor with no clothes.
This is more than just a mere "talking heads" documentary. It explores the details of the story within the broader context of unbridled capitalism, de-regulation, and corporate corruption. The movie also shows us how strangely immature the men at the head of this company were, with their frat boy antics and the daredevil activities they indulged in to erase their "nerd" image and to establish their bona fides as real "macho" men. The fact that individuals of this caliber could spell the ruin of so many trusting people is what gives the movie's title that little ironic kick.
By all means, don't miss this film - though you might want to have a good stiff drink handy for when it's over.
Rarely does a real life event provide us with as clear and universally recognized a symbol of a larger social theme as does the fall of Enron, which, in the years since it happened, has come to stand for everything that's wrong with corporate America. It is the classic tale of corruption and unethical behavior performed in the service of unbridled greed. That the men responsible for the disaster took so many innocent people down with them is what makes it a tragedy. In fact, more than one person interviewed for the film draws the parallel between the downfall of Enron and the sinking of the Titanic - an apt analogy if ever there was one, only, in this case, the captains had no intention of going down with the ship, preferring instead to ruthlessly knock over any number of helpless women and children in the desperate race to the lifeboats.
The beauty of the film is that it takes a very complex and convoluted story and makes it completely comprehensible to those of us who might otherwise get lost in the maze of arcane corporate-world details. The movie introduces us to the key players - primarily CEOs Jeffrey Skilling and Ken Lay, and CFO Andrew Fastow - showing the step-by-step process by which they built the energy corporation virtually from scratch, raised it to the position of seventh largest company in the world, then slowly destroyed it through deceit, hubris and greed - but not, of course, before bestowing obscene multi-million dollar packages on themselves as compensation. We see how they employed little more than smoke-and-mirror accounting schemes to pull the wool over the eyes of investors, regulatory commissions and fellow employees. However, the film makes it clear that a large number of "reputable" banks and loan agencies must also have been complicit in the company's malfeasance for all of this to have come off so effectively.
As always, it is the "little guy" who winds up getting shafted. Probably the greatest hair-pulling section of the film involves Enron's cold-blooded creation and manipulation of California's bogus "energy crisis" in the early 2000's, which drained billions from the state's treasury, a situation which the newly elected President Bush, ever sympathetic to his buddies in the energy business, refused to help rectify. Just as bad is the CEOs' callous encouragement of their own lower level employees to invest their retirement savings in the company's 401K plan that the chief executives themselves knew would soon be defunct. With hissable villains like these around, who needs fiction? The sole consolation is the fact that the system did work in the end, that the wrongdoers eventually overreached to such an extent that the house of cards they had built finally came tumbling down. There's certainly a great deal of joy in seeing the creeps responsible for the catastrophe being carted off to jail in handcuffs and sweating under the public scrutiny of a congressional investigative committee. (It should be noted that the film predates Ken Lay's death in 2006). The movie also balances the case by highlighting some of the "heroes" in the story, primarily whistleblowers within the company and a resourceful reporter for FORTUNE magazine who was the first to hint in a public forum that Enron might just be the corporate equivalent of the emperor with no clothes.
This is more than just a mere "talking heads" documentary. It explores the details of the story within the broader context of unbridled capitalism, de-regulation, and corporate corruption. The movie also shows us how strangely immature the men at the head of this company were, with their frat boy antics and the daredevil activities they indulged in to erase their "nerd" image and to establish their bona fides as real "macho" men. The fact that individuals of this caliber could spell the ruin of so many trusting people is what gives the movie's title that little ironic kick.
By all means, don't miss this film - though you might want to have a good stiff drink handy for when it's over.