This film is based on the book by Fortune Magazine reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind. It's written and directed by Alex Gibney. He examines the rise and fall of Enron tracing it from as far back as 1987.
The film opens with the question WHY?
The film tries to show the greed, the motivation and the catalysts of the world's seventh largest company- how it took years to build and two months to destroy. The key Executives were Kenneth Lay and Jeff Skilling. They created an atmosphere where the only objective was to make money by any means necessary– even if that meant shutting power plants down in California. The brokers laughed why they dictated to Wall Street what was profitable and what was not. Enron's "aggressive accounting" philosophy made it appear that the company was highly profitable when it was millions in debt. One lie masqueraded another and soon a female whistle-blower led to the fall of this highly ambitious business and major manipulator of stocks, ethics and capitalism. This movie shows how empires are made and what kind of people contributed to this corporate animal- it wasn't politics as usual. It was peculiar accounting, abnormal stock traders and the influence of the Bush White House.
At the end of the movie, Gibney calculates what the Enron executives made vs. what was lost in 401K's, pensions and jobs, not to mention years of loyalty. It's sick to see how much money people lost, so that three people could gain.
Obviously the subject matter was interesting to start with, but Gibney added moments of laughter. Truly the greed and corruption that goes on in Corporate America and Enron's CEO's denials of truth are comical. In Gibney's eyes, Enron may be the first to get caught but won't be the last Goliath to overtake Wall Street. Let's hope investors add their numbers much better next time and learn to say NO.
Worth the money rating: $$$ ½
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