I didn't follow the Enron disaster too closely. It was a busy time in my life, and I was concentrating on keeping my family afloat. I did, however, have a general understanding of the magnitude of the crimes committed by the top echelon of Enron's leadership and a general feeling that they were getting off a lot lighter than the poor schlub who steals $20 from the local 7-11. I never really bothered to go back and look into the story until a trusted cousin of mine (an executive, himself)) strongly recommended that I give this movie a look.
Wow. What a shocking, well-made movie. As it turns out, the criminals at Enron weren't just the top three or four guys. There was widespread criminality throughout the company's trading floor, an entire corporate culture of "me first and screw the country" at work there. _Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room_ takes inside the company through interviews and archival footage, and it raises real questions about how to balance the freedoms necessary for capitalism to work while ensuring that those involved in the actual workings of capitalism stay on the straight and narrow.
Sure, the movie spends some unnecessary time on the salacious. Did I really need to know about one exec's stripper fetish, complete with gratuitous nudie footage? I mean, c'mon - I was watching this movie in an airport lounge! Nevertheless, _Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room_ entertains and compels. It is one fine documentary.
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