| | | Come See Where All Your Money Went.
Features: Blu-ray DVD, Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 2.40:1, Spanish, Subtitled
Based on the best-selling book by Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room details the shocking inside story of one of history's greatest business scandals. Unimaginable personal excesses, and an utter moral vacuum that posed as corporate philosophy, led to top executives of America's seventh largest corporation walking away with over one billion dollars while investors and employees lost everything. Narrated by Peter Coyote, this documentary features insider accounts and incendiary corporate audio and videotapes that will have viewers' blood boiling.
"...a deeply straightforward yet beautifully crafted documentary..." Entertainment Weekly
"...a chilling, completely fascinating documentary..." Los Angeles Times
"...a tight, fascinating chronicle of arrogance and greed..." The New York Times
"...a staggering, often blackly comic account of the American dream gone sour..." Total Film
"...packed with more drama, sleaze and wickedness than your average Hollywood pot-boiler..." Ultimate DVD
Editor's Note
This searing examination of the Enron accounting scandal reveals the psychology of greed and corporate corruption that facilitated the company's rise to power and also its fall. When Enron went bankrupt in 2001, the principals walked away millionaires--but later faced legal proceedings and jail sentences. Meanwhile, many employees and investors were left with nothing, not even their 401k retirement savings. Shedding light on the new economy of the 1990s when predictions and book-cooking flourished without actual profits, the film shows how it was not Enron alone but a network of bankers, traders, and accountants who turned a blind eye to the company's clearly suspicious numbers. CEO Ken Lay and top dogs Jeff Skilling and Andy Fastow give candid interviews that illustrate their skill at deflecting hard questions and egotistically boasting about the company's success. In one of the company's cold and calculated moves--which caused the California power outages, and lead to the ousting of governor Gray Davis--Enron employees are shown laughing at forest fires. Unbelievable footage of employees reveals unbridled greed, lust for risk-taking, and guiltless cheating, all while thinking they could never be caught. Finally, a few brave whistle-blowers stepped forward, including Bethany McLean, author of the Enron novel upon which this film is based, who wrote an article in Fortune magazine calling the company's bluff. A remarkable documentary which packages the events of the scandal into a cohesive story, this is one film not to miss.This film screened in the 2005 SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas.
| Features | Audio: English Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 Surround Sound | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | This Is A Blu-Ray DVD Made For Blue-Laser Format Players Which Produce Higher Quality Picture And Sound |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: MAGNOLIA PICTURES |
| Release Date: 9/26/2006 |
| Original Release Date: 2005 | | UPC: 00876964000475 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 1.78:1 |
| Cast & Crew | Alex Gibney - Director | | Alex Gibney - Screenplay | | Alison Ellwood - Editor | | Arnold Schwarzenegger - Featuring | | Bethany McLean - Based On Book By | | Bill Clinton - Featuring | | Dick Cheney - Featuring | | George W. Bush - Featuring | | Gray Davis - Featuring | | Jason Kliot - Producer | | Jay Leno - Featuring | | Maria Shriver - Featuring | | Mark Cuban - Executive Producer | | Maryse Alberti - Cinematographer | | Matthew Hauser - Original Music By | | Peter Coyote - Narrated By | | Peter Elkind - Based On Book By |
| Awards |
Winner (2006) | | | Independent Spirit, Alex Gibney, Best Documentary | |
Nominee (2006) | | | Oscar, Alex Gibney, Jason Kliot, Best Documentary, Features | |
Nominee (2005) | | | Sundance Film Festival, Alex Gibney, Grand Jury Prize - Documentary |
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| | Professional Reviews | New York Times
"ENRON is a tight, fascinating chronicle of arrogance and greed..." 04/22/2005 p.E12Los Angeles Times
"It's a chilling, completely fascinating documentary that reveals the face of unregulated greed..." 04/29/2005 p.E1 Entertainment Weekly
"[A] deeply straightforward yet beautifully crafted documentary that turns the vortex inside out, and does it with a thrilling moral clarity." 04/29/2005 p.128 USA Today
"[A] tale of swaggering arrogance and untrammeled greed....The film's most climactic moments involve the chilling audiotapes of avaricious Enron traders as they toy with California's energy crisis, wringing millions in profits from the misfortune of an entire state." 04/22/2005 p.4E Rolling Stone
"[R]iveting....It's a ringing indictment of corporate greed..." 05/05/2005 p.86 Sight and Sound
"Gibney's documentary is a taut, focused essay asking why at every turn, methodically moving from key player to key player." 06/01/2006 p.48 Total Film
4 stars out of 5 -- "It's a staggering, often blackly comic account of the American dream gone sour..." 10/01/2006 p.105 Uncut
4 stars out of 4 -- "This excellent film communicates both the business story of fraud and failure, and a human drama of hubris..." 10/01/2006 p.156 Ultimate DVD
4 stars out of 5 -- "Gibney's film is packed with more drama, sleaze and wickedness than your average Hollywood pot-boiler....[T]his manages to be both shocking and compelling." 10/01/2006 p.119 Variety 9 of 10
By turns amazing, amusing and appalling in ways that recall Michael Moore at his most sardonically outraged, "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" earns props simply for clarifying a dauntingly complex tale of financial catastrophe fueled by wanton hubris...Comic relief abounds throughout the pic, particularly when Gibson focuses on Lou Pai, a Skilling lieutenant with an unseemly fondness for strippers. Some juxtapositions of images and music are too clever by half, and a few illustrative sight gags -- including, at one point, a quick cut to a massive bag stenciled with a dollar sign -- border on the juvenile. Pic is at its sharpest, and cuts deepest, when it allows the subjects to hang themselves with their own words and actions. - Joe Leydon
Chicago Sun-Times 9 of 10
This is not a political documentary. It is a crime story. No matter what your politics, "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" will make you mad. It tells the story of how Enron rose to become the seventh largest corporation in America with what was essentially a Ponzi scheme, and in its last days looted the retirement funds of its employees to buy a little more time...It is assembled out of a wealth of documentary and video footage, narrated by Peter Coyote, from testimony at congressional hearings, and from interviews with such figures as disillusioned Enron exec Mike Muckleroy and whistle-blower Sherron Watkins. It is best when it sticks to fact, shakier when it goes for visual effects and heavy irony. - Roger Ebert
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