Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

If you get a chance to catch this, be sure and do so. It's an interesting new documentary movie that takes a look at the Enron disaster and what brought it about.

My one complaint about it would have to be the way they bookended it by tirading against the Bush administration, which obviously had nothing to do with the Enron collapse. It also vastly oversimplifies the California energy crisis, and makes Gray Davis (of all people!) out to be some kind of saint. Enron's and Andersen's shenanigans took place on Clinton's watch, and yet there's no mention of billy-boy in the whole program, or credit given to the Bush/Ashcroft justice department for the 15 pleas and 6 convictions of Enron execs. There's also a bit too much demonization of American business for my taste. What's really interesting about Enron is that, in the end, they DIDN'T get away with it.

But I don't mean to make a mountain out of a minor complaint -- the show is, by and large, excellent. It's pretty good as a general run-down of what happened, but what really makes it interesting are the specific examples cited along the way. It does a good job of putting faces to names and painting a picture of the strange (or maybe not so strange...) environment of the company that paved the way for destruction.

Anyway, check it out if you get a chance. It's in selected movie theaters, and playing on HD Net (mainly for DirecTV HDTV subscribers). Presumably it'll hit wider release and DVD at some point.