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April 15, 2005

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

After watching the nail-biting finish to last night's Red Sox game, we tossed Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room into the DVD player to see what we thought of it. The documentary covers Enron from its inception through the issues that brought it down, concluding with a footnote that Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling are supposed to come to trial in 2005.

In general I found it to be a pretty impressive piece of film. After an introduction that mixes some effective pieces of interviews with various people with an annoying voice over, the movie transitions to a clear and compelling narrative. The story of Enron is told in pretty good detail (although I'll concede that I'm no expert on the story and therefore cannot be certain that key details weren't left out). Nonetheless, I didn't feel that the film was as heavy-handed as Glenn did; while the choice of interviewees and a few instances of directorial slant made clear the filmmaker's opinion of Enron, I didn't feel that I was being beat over the head with the message that capitalism sucks.

Instead the film managed to stick pretty effectively to telling the story of what went wrong with Enron, although I think it could have been more effective if it had gotten into a few more details. The film is very effective in laying out some of the problems exposed in banking and the markets, but it never really addresses how these problems arose (outside of those directly related to Enron, that is) or how they might be addressed. Arguably this is due to the director's distaste for capitalism, but I think it undermines the film. Is regulation the only solution for people who abuse capitalism? I suspect that there are other solutions, but the film never explores them. Certainly there's plenty of opprobrium merited by the actions of Enron executives and various banks, but it anger rarely leads to a good solution.

All in all, the film provides a pretty good overview of the ingredients that went into the Enron debacle while remaining interesting rather than simply a dry recitation. For those seeking to learn more about the story behind Enron, The Smartest Guys in the Room is a good starting point, (and I suspect I'll be picking up a copy of the book to get into more details). Nonetheless, there may be a touch of disappointment for viewers looking for a bit more discussion of how the problems can be avoided in the future.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room opens next Friday, April 22.