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Enron: The Smartest Guys in The Room (2-Disc Set - WMVHD DVDs)
Average Customer Review : 4.5/5 based on 160 reviews
List Price : $9.95
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Editorial Reviews
One 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
Spotlight Reviews
Well Done (2009-01-02)
Customer Review : 5
Excellent documentary. My ONLY beef is that they had a topless woman in near the beginning. Doesn't really bother me, but I am a university instructor so I had to edit that part out for when I play it in class. I'm not sure why they thought it was important to have a 5 second scene with topless women. Not necessary to get their point across.
Fantastic (2008-12-13)
Customer Review : 5
This documentary is indicative of what has happened at the various financial institutions on Wall Street that has led to the collapse of our economy. The Commodities Futures Modernization Act, Mark to Market Accounting, repeal of Glass Steagall, etc., are THE causes. The collapse never would have happened because a small percentage of people foreclosed on their mortgages. It was the what was done with those mortgages (how they were sold and traded) that was the real crime. This documentary shows what happened at Enron. The audio tapes of the traders and what they did is astounding and infuriating. Most of this stuff never made it to the news media. You did not see 1/10th of the criminal behaviour that went on at this place on your "TV News". I highly recommend this documentary to anyone who wants to see how things work....and how they won't change until this legislation is changed to prevent this type of behaviour.
Excellent Doco on Enron Scandal (2008-11-24)
Customer Review : 5
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".
Enron DVD (2008-10-30)
Customer Review : 1
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.
It's a few years old, but NOT out-dated (2008-10-19)
Customer Review : 5
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.
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