Definately worth seeing, and a reasonably entertaining film.

It falls well short of being a thorough examination of this grotesque episode of unregulated and amoral greed, however.

The rise and fall of Enron is the most interesting case of business corruption since the 1920s. Enron's misdeeds went far beyond the usual run-of-the-mill insider trading and accounting improprieties that most corporate scandals amount to. Enron was unique in the scale and scope of its corruption: employees, banks, accounting firms, journalists, governments (state, local, federal, even foreign!) were all implicated in its crimes. Except for its coverage of the California blackout, however, Enron: The Smartest Guys in The Room falls short of chronicling the mechanics of how a modest pipeline company turned into a criminal conspiracy to rob the public, the government, shareholders, and finally its own employees. The documentary lingers for over an hour on CEO Jeff Skilling, little more than a self-deluded, greedy 'enabler' who turned a blind eye to the crimes of others-provided they made money for the company. Meanwhile, the film spends about 15 minutes on Andy Fastow, Enron's CFO and the real evil genius behind the deals with Enron's accounting firm and major New York banks. It was Fastow who enabled Enron to book non-existent profits-and turn its white-collar misdemenors into epic felonies. The film spends about 5 minutes, at most, on Enron's political connections. Yet the story of Enron is, basically, the story of crony-capitalism-substituting political influence and fraud for productivity and innovation. The fundamental question of Enron-how the company managed to dupe and subvert the 'guardians' of American capitalism (banks, accountants, regulators, media) is glossed over. Instead, there is endless drivel about Skilling's personal life, Enron's amoral/macho corporate culture, chairman Ken Lay's pathetic cluelessness, and a great deal of 'filler': shots of skydiving, dune buggies, money, and other unnecessary symbolic junk. Continuous, atrocious and unnecessary pop soundtrack: another minus. As documentaries have been the most interesting genra of American film in the last 15 years, I hope this film does not portend a dummbing-down of the format as documentaries 'go mainstream.' The story of Enron is a fascinating one, but it deserves a better storyteller than whoever made this movie.

Worth seeing. The Enron story is an unbelievable story of greed - not just by the Skillings and Lays, but by their bankers, lawyers, accountants, customers, investors, and traders. There was so much cash being thrown off by the stock's meteoric rise, that everybody involved was content to take their place at the trough, and ignore their ethics. I was blown away by the price California paid for Enron's greed. Having lived through the rolling blackouts a couple of years ago, I had always found it extremely strange that the State would suddenly run out of power, especially in the winter. Well it turns out, a desperate Enron was driving its traders to convince power station operators to shut down, in order to drive the price of electricity up. Enron would profit from the increased prices, and more lucratively, gamble that the price of electricity would go up. These profits allowed Enron to maintain the facade of a financially healthy company. In California, businesses were being shut down, cars were crashing when streetlights went down, and the fifth largest economy in the world would be crippled for hours on end. And all so Enron could line their pockets. Governor Gray Davis plead to the Feds for help in regulating the price of energy. Unfortunately for California, George W. Bush is/was a close family friend of Lay, and even was recorded taping a birthday video for Skilling, and no help was forthcoming. (to be fair, the Fed position was that this was a California issue, but the obvious conflict of interest made my stomach turn.) Stunning sequences in this movie of Gray Davis questioning how half the states power plants could be down for maintenance at the same time, set against taped Enron trader calls to the power plants, saying that they need to find a reason to shut down for a little while. It's an ugly story, and tragic as well - the movie begins and ends with the suicide of one of Enron's beloved executives, not to mention the galling video clip of a laughing Skilling imploring his employees to put their entire 401K's in Enron stock. While the movie is a little heavy handed, it makes for compelling viewing.