Customer Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Doco on Enron Scandal
Comment: I was so impressed by Alex Gibney's "Taxi to the Dark Side" (about the Bush administration's own unconscionable actions in the so-called War on Terror)that I decided to check out his film on the Enron debacle, and I was not disappointed.
The collapse of Enron is, of course, a cautionary tale of ethics left behind in the quest for the almighty dollar.
What is impressive about this film is the way the money manipulations are explained so even non-PhD's can follow the trail of fraud. Basically the company used a new form of accounting that allowed them to claim potential future profits as current gains, hiding billions in losses from global investments gone bad.
At the same time, the film also focuses on the culture of greed that flourished at Enron, encouraged at every step by its top dogs, notably "Kenny Boy" (friend to the Bush family) Lay, Jeff Skilling, and CFO Andy Fastow, and enabled by everyone from banks and investment firms like Citibank, Credit Suisse, and Merrill Lynch to the President of the United States.
I didn't know about Enron's involvement in the California energy crisis that allowed the Republicans to drive Governor Grey Davis from office and install the Governator. Again, Bush was involved in the scandal -- by doing nothing to intervene in the chaos that enveloped the state, with energy prices soaring and blackouts taking place on a daily basis.
The film implies, but does not state, the actual cost to the state not just in money, but in lives potentially lost during the various blackouts.
Again, to disrupt and even threaten the lives of so many innocent citizens just so a posse of traders could help their corrupt superiors make enough money to conceal their mounting losses -- it just makes you sick.
And then the film reminds us that at the collapse of Enron, the top guys managed to sell many of their shares before the value had plummeted. The poor shlubs at the bottom -- including electrical workers at companies acquired by Enron -- lost virtually all their pensions.
Given the stink of this catastrophe unfolding in early 2001, one has to wonder about the curious timing of the year's even greater catastrophe -- 9/11 -- and the one person who gained most from the debacle, a guy named Bush.
There's plenty of food for thought here, including the reprint of the original article in Fortune that questioned Enron's math, and another revealing the complicity of the major banks in helping Fastow and Enron conceal the growing hole that threatened to swallow them whole.
Is it any wonder why our blue-chip financial institutions are failing at a record pace? They are rotting from the ravages of deregulation, and the mess started under Reagan.
I'm going to have to keep an eye on Gibney -- and see if he has directed any other eye-openers like this film and "Taxi".
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Enron DVD
Comment: Well this did not work out the way I'd hoped. I could not use the DVD in either my brand new HD DVD player or my older one. Nor did it work in the DVD player at the political office where I wanted to show it either. It only worked on my computer. So I was not able to use it for the purpose I desired.
Customer Rating:
Summary: It's a few years old, but NOT out-dated
Comment: Don't think that this story is "old" and without relevance. We are all still feeling the effects today, and the same kinds of things are still happening. The makers of this film are fond of saying "it's not a movie about numbers, but about people," and that is true. It's a compelling story, well told, in an artistic fashion.
I've owned this DVD since it was first released and watched it well over a dozen times. I never tire of it, and the bonus features, such as the director's commentary, make it all the more interesting and informative.
Even if you are not particularly interested in business, politics, Enron, or stocks, you will enjoy this movie because it's interesting and well-made.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Bias is an Obvious as the Title
Comment: Although this movie does a fair job of explaining what happened with Enron like most of these types of documentaries there's a strong and obvious bias. The title says it all. It blames men for the problem. The supposed "whistleblowers" are all women. The movie relies on these women for firsthand accounts, ignoring the fact that they were right there in the action. They participated in illegal actions, not only knowing what they were doing but plainly profiting. They didn't make millions but were paid several times their normal pay. Likely they're paid to be in the movie and don't see a problem with that either. It's also well known that these men had wives who spent as much as their husbands could steal. The movie and this whole school of thought implies that if women were in charge we wouldn't have these problems. In fact, what has happened is there are two major parties, the rich man's party and the rich woman's party. It should be obvious but the rich women as much as they complain about the rich men don't really want to see their class undermined. Working men have been complaining about these types of things forever and they used to be at the center of the Democratic Party. Now they're most ignored except close to election time. For a working man a movie like this is really a big nothing because they know all this already. The real problem is the refusal of either party to really do anything other than shift a bit in favor of one rich group over another.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Lions for Lambs
Comment: "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" is a chilling,engrossing,and surprisingly timely documentary on how a corporation fleeced tons of hard-working Americans and made millions in the process. It starts with ordinary,talented men like the late Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling,as well as an Asian man fascinated by numbers and strippers. They started out as entrepreneurs; they weren't born with silver spoons. In retrospect,it's fascinating to see their ads depicting Enron as an innovative company bringing light to the world.
"Enron" shows the consequences of following Gordon Gecko's "Greed is good" motto. Lay, Skilling, and his associates began to consider themselves above the law. They created artificial shortages and rolling blackouts. In one chilling scene,employees laugh about leaving a grandmother in the dark while shaking her down for money. There was undisciplined speculation, business at its worst. While the movie plays up Enron's connections with the Bush family, Enron also had Democratic connections,and Democratic California governor Gray Davis let them get away with highway robbery.
When people talk about the hikes in oil prices as "Enronesque",this documentary shows why. Enron played the system... and it paid. What goes around comes around.
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