Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Aroview: Cautionary documentary about the stellar rise and unseemly 2001 collapse of one of America's largest corporations - Enron - which concealed its fraudulently 'creative' accounting practices behind a smokescreen of false profits and hubristic self-confidence, until brought down by disastrous events like the 'phony' Californian energy crisis.

Informed by a majestic sense of tragic inevitability, dir. Gibney (THE TRIALS OF HENRY KISSINGER) constructs a compelling narrative of greed and delusion, making clear that charismatic Enron-founders Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling enjoyed the complicity of politicians, stock analysts and bankers, in their financial hall of mirrors which ultimately led to the loss of thousands of jobs and over $30 billion dollars. Narrated by Peter Coyote over an impressively-marshalled array of archival footage, interviews and even Enron corporate videos, this is surely one of the great tales of our time.

Note: In 2006 both Lay and Skilling were found guilty on fraud charges and currently face many years in prison. Lay died of a heart attack several months later.

NZ International Film Festival 2005

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