Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
by Alex Gibney
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bethany McLean, Jim Chanos, Michael Lugenbuehl, Peter Coyote, Reggie Dees IIDirector: Alex Gibney
Brand: ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM (DVD MOV
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 110 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-01-17
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Magnolia
Movie Reviews of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Movie Review: Unfettered Hubris Drives Intriguing Account of Enron Scandal
Summary: 4 Stars
Even after reading Kurt Eichenwald's Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story, I was not prepared for the near-Greek tragedy presented in this smartly produced documentary of the Enron scandal based on yet another book, Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, by journalists Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind. Directed by Andy Gibney, the 2005 film follows the complicated rise and fall of Enron in an easy-to-follow, chronological order since the mid-1980's, using actor Peter Coyote's lucid voice-over narration. Enron started as a moderate-sized Houston gas-pipeline company that grew exponentially, reaping benefits for shareholders and far more so for the Enron executive team for a long, uninterrupted stretch. Billions of dollars were collected due to speculative mark-to-market accounting techniques approved by the SEC, and Enron consequently became one of the world's largest natural-gas suppliers.
What resonates most from this searing film is how circumstantially pathological the chief villains are in this true corporate morality story. While the infamous Ken Lay comes across as the corrupt figurehead we have already come to know through news reports, it's really Enron CFO Andy Fastow (dubbed appropriately "The Sorcerer's Apprentice") and especially President and COO Jeff Skilling, who are mercilessly exposed here. Skilling is portrayed as a brilliant leader and a corporate Darwinist, whose favorite book is Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, which he apparently translated into a bloodless performance review policy that worked like a genetic algorithm for people. Employees were rated on a 1-5 scale based on the amount of money one made for the company. Skilling mandated that between 10-15% of employees had to be rated as 5's (worst). And to get a rating of 5 meant that one was immediately fired. This review process was dubbed "rank and yank". Such was a typical example of his survivalist thinking.
The corruption spread throughout the company, as Enron was responsible for, among other things, gaming the Northern California "rolling blackouts" in 2001, whereby the company profited as huge parts of the state were plunged into darkness. Citizens were threatened by a deregulation plan that essentially enabled a number of immoral Enron traders (led by Tim Belden) to place calls that drove up energy-market prices and took advantage of power-plant shutdowns. Of course, the Bush family dynasty does not come across unscathed in the Enron story and justifiably so according to their inextricable ties to Lay. Gibney effectively uses video footage from testimony at congressional hearings, as well as interviews with disillusioned former employees such as Mike Muckleroy and whistle-blower Sherron Watkins (who uses some effective pop culture references like Body Heat and Jonestown to get her points across).
There are some amusing vignettes and images that tie some of the disparate elements together with excessive glibness. The documentary is best when it sticks to the facts, for this is one inarguable case where fact is truly stranger than fiction. Extras are plentiful on the 2006 DVD. Gibney provides an informative albeit verbose commentary track, and four deleted scenes, about twenty minutes in total, are included that become redundant with the film's portrayal of corporate malfeasance. There is also a fourteen-minute making-of featurette, as well as a "Where Are They Now?" snippet on the principals and three separate conversations with McLean and Elkind on how they got the story, how they validated their findings, and their enthusiastic reaction to the film. Other bonus materials include Gibney reading from scripts of skits performed at Enron and a Firesign Theater sketch about Enron's demise, as well as Fortune Magazine articles written by McLean and Elkind and a gallery of editorial cartoons.
Summary of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Based on the best-selling book of the same name by Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind a multidimensional study of one of the biggest business scandals in American history. The chronicle takes a look at one of the greatest corporate disasters in history in which top executives from the 7th largest company in this country walked away with over one billion dollars leaving investors and employees with nothing. The film features insider accounts and rare corporate audio and video tapes that reveal colossal personal excesses of the Enron hierarchy and the utter moral vacuum that posed as corporate philosophy. The human drama that unfolds within Enron's walls resembles a Greek tragedy and produces a domino effect that could shape the face of our economy and ethical code for years to come.DVD Features: Available Audio Tracks: English (Unknown Format) Commentary by: writer-director Alex Gibney (Unknown Format) Deleted scenes "The Making of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" featuring research footage and exclusive interviews with writer-director Alex Gibney and investigative journalist Bethany McLean Enron company skits Enron commercial Where are they now?: updates on the executives traders and whistleblowers A gallery of Enron cartoons The original Fortune magazine articles System Requirements:Running Time 110 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. Rating: R UPC: 876964000017 Manufacturer No: 10001One of the greatest scandals in American corporate history is chronicled in the riveting documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Based on the bestselling book by Fortune magazine reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkin, and directed by Alex Gibney (who also produced The Trials of Henry Kissinger), the film is an epic morality tale, drawing upon a wealth of insider interviews and archival material to show how Enron, once the nation's seventh largest corporate entity, essentially faked its bookkeeping to report profits that never existed. The corrupt and closely-guarded mismanagement by Enron executives (including Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, later placed on criminal trial) is revealed through such heinous concepts as "Hypothetical Future Value" (a way of reaping fortunes based on false profit projections) and the use of offshore "shell" companies to hide the massive losses that eventually toppled the company (along with the venerable Arthur Anderson accounting firm) and left 20,000 employees jobless. As a maddening portrait of hubris and white-collar crime, Enron transcends political and corporate boundaries by showing how smart and powerful men grew blinded by greed and brought ruin upon themselves, along with thousands of otherwise innocent victims. For better and worse, it's a perfect double-feature with eye-opening 2004 documentary The Corporation. --Jeff Shannon
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