Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
- Episode aired Oct 13, 2005
- R
- 1h 49m
Corporate audio and videotapes tell the inside story of the scandal involving one company's manipulation of California's energy supply and its, and how its executives wrung a billion dollars... Read allCorporate audio and videotapes tell the inside story of the scandal involving one company's manipulation of California's energy supply and its, and how its executives wrung a billion dollars out of the resulting crisis.Corporate audio and videotapes tell the inside story of the scandal involving one company's manipulation of California's energy supply and its, and how its executives wrung a billion dollars out of the resulting crisis.
- Self
- (archive footage)
- Self
- (as Jim Chanos)
- Self
- (archive footage)
- Young man the stripper dances in front of
- (as Reggie Deets II)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaAmong the protesters who disrupt the meeting with Jeff Skilling at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club is Marla Ruzicka, who was killed on 16 April 2005 in Iraq by a suicide bomber. She founded CIVIC (Campaign for Innocent Victims of Conflict) which worked to help the victims of the war in Iraq and she was a former Global Exchange activist.
- Quotes
Gray Davis: [upon being asked whether the rumors that he was responsible for the black outs in California are just a plot by the Republican party to get him recalled]
[shouts]
Gray Davis: Hello!
- Crazy creditsSpecial thanks includes "all the `Deep Throats' - you know who you are!"
- ConnectionsFeatured in 2006 Independent Spirit Awards (2006)
Thankfully, I was quite wrong. I found the film to be both factual and evenhanded, and it's portrayal of the key Enron players provided depth, character, and even compassion at times.
There's no doubt that Enron was the defining business fiasco of the last 20 years, but what struck me about this films presentation (and which was wholly lost in most of the media coverage) is that its downfall was not entirely driven by greed. At least, not at the highest levels of the firm.
The primary contributing factor to the disaster was, in fact, ego. These guys didn't wake up in the morning looking to rip off their employees and shareholders and tank the company. They had (what they thought was) a revolutionary idea on how to sell energy in the marketplace. As far as they could tell, it was dynamite on paper, and they had their egos so wrapped up in these ideas, that they became completely blind to the reality that they were hemorrhaging capital because it simply didn't work in reality. It got to the point that in order to conceal their intellectual failure, they embarked on ever-more radical measures to hide the firms losses. Mind you, they all seemed to genuinely believe that eventually these new ideas would begin to work, and they would recoup all the losses and then some. At times, it seemed to resemble the attitude of a gambler who can't get up from the card game because he's waiting for that one perfect hand that never comes, and loses the house and car in the process. It's not what he intended when he sat down, but its the result nonetheless.
Of course, Enron was cheered on by the irrational exuberance of the late-90's boom market, which only served to enable this attitude, and in fact attracted a lot of genuinely greedy and sleazy traders, brokers and banker who were eager to make a buck off of the Enron business model.
Which leads me to the one disappointment that I have with this film, which is that it omits entirely the role that the Clinton Administration played in fostering the irrationally exuberant Wall Street culture of the era. If Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling were the degenerate gamblers, Bill Clinton was the enabling wife who never put her foot down and demanded he get help or get out. (The film, does, however detail the business dealings that Enron had with the Bush family... they should have either left politics out, or been more evenhanded in this regard.) What is remarkable, however, is the relatively short amount of time this all occurred in. Enron went from modest pipeline company, to energy juggernaut to total bust in, what, 5-6 years? Amazing.
Some will walk away from the Enron story convinced that the system will never work. I, however, see it differently. To me, the system worked. If it has proved anything, it's that no matter how rich, powerful or influential you are, you simply can't cook the books for very long in a free market environment before everything comes crashing down around you in a big way. The Enron story should make powerful executives think twice when tempted to do something unethical, regardless of intention. Which really should be a comforting thought for everyone.
See this film. It's definitely worth the time.
- tpaladino
- Sep 20, 2006
Details
- Runtime1 hour 49 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1