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This! Reviews Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
We’ve all heard snippets about the rise and fall
of this Texas giant.
By Rebecca Redshaw
Fear and trepidation is spreading across the country
about the demise of Social Security. Even the faithful
that are admitted to President Bush’s propagandized town
meetings shudder about the youth of America being
entrusted with investing their future. But big business
carries on. Except for one big business – Enron.
We’ve all heard snippets about the rise and fall of this
Texas giant. But, alas, like the S&L scandals of a
decade ago, white collar crime doesn’t play as well on
CNN as repeated footage of tsunamis carrying human
beings out to sea.
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is an
intelligent documentary. It requires the viewer to
commit almost two hours of viewing and listening time to
learn how Chairman Ken Lay (or “Kenny-boy” as George W.
refers to him) and CEO Jeff Skilling negatively affected
thousands of lives (millions, if you count Californians
affected by the energy blackouts). The telling of this
financial disaster was easy to document for several
reasons; the audacity of its corporate subjects, the
intelligent reporting of Fortune magazine reporters
Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, and the skilled
direction of documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney.
CEO Jeff Skilling
There is really no need to skew the film to sway the
audience, the facts speak for themselves. If you’re
fortunate enough to have a 401k with your employer (in
other words, if you are not a freelance writer), imagine
being told it was a safe and profitable account to
continue investing in even as the bigwigs were busy
cashing in. Then, when you did realize your financial
savings were in jeopardy and you tried to access your
remaining nest egg, you learn a freeze had been put on
salvaging your dwindling balance.
Thanks to Lou Pi, the executive who jumped ship early
with two hundred and fifty million smackers in his back
pocket and a pregnant stripper on his arm, The
Smartest Guys in the Room has a dabbling of nudity.
An executive suicide adds a hint of violence and the
resulting dewy eyes among reminiscing ex-employees lends
a touch of pathos. Even the site of handcuffs on the
“smartest guys” and the possibility of jail time are not
enough to assuage the outrage toward these audacious
louts. (The fact that Skilling has hired council with a
$23,000,000 retainer casts doubt on how hard the justice
system will come down on him after all the legal
maneuverings.)
Peter Coyote’s distinctive voiceover is on the money and
the selected tunes augmenting the soundtrack contribute
far more than the average two cents.
Movies that portend to serve as history lessons usually
rank low in accuracy. Consider a viewing Enron: The
Smartest Guys in the Room a graduate lesson to be
taken seriously.
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