Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1861 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-09-10
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 110 minutes

Synopsis
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 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. Footage of employees reveals greed, lust for risk-taking, and 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.

Customer Reviews

The rise and fall of one of the US's biggest businesses
The collapse of the energy giant Enron, was perhaps the greatest financial scandal in history, a company that went from a share value of tens of billions of dollars to bankruptcy in less than one month. Alex Gibney's chilling documentary takes what could be a complex, financially dense story and turns in into a comprehensible and engrossing documentary.

Based on Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind's book of the same name, Gibney's film lays bare the sordid details at the heart of what was at one time, one of the United State's richest and most powerful companies, a company whose Chief Executive Officer was on first name terms with George W. Bush. Gibney shows how 'creative' accounting allowed projects that did not turn a penny in profit could be re-imagined as massive revenue streams, how America's oldest accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, signed off on such dubious financial practices (a one million dollars a day fee possibly helped), how Enron's losses were hidden in labyrinthine corporate webs, with shell companies 'buying' loss-making operations, how the energy market in California was grossly manipulated, leading to huge profits for Enron and an electrical blackout for some of the state's residents and ultimately, how lying and greed resulted in tens of millions of dollars in bonuses for a few at the top, empty pension funds for the rest of the employees.

With copious interviews, Gibney shows how, when Enron was making big bucks, everybody wanted a piece of the pie - the accounting firms, the lawyers, the banks like Chase, Credit Suisse and Citibank - everybody had their hand out. A macho culture of "step on the other guy's neck" allowed traders to make money hand over fist without having to worry about the consequences of their actions.

In keeping with the another excellent documentary on big business, The Corporation, filmmaker Alex Gibney argues that Enron wasn't an aberrant operation - an extreme example perhaps but not (obviously) unimaginable. Rather, Enron seems to suggest that such an event happened once and could happen again, that this is the quite logical result when the legal fiction that are corporate entities are mandated by law to have only one concern, which is the bottom line. The possibility that positive social effects might be spun off from such activity is permissible only if it enhances the company's reputation and therefore value.

All of this and so much more is made quite clear in this engaging film. Alex gibney has digested a great deal of material and presented it in such a way that no foreknowledge is required; characters are introduced, plots are hatched, money is made, cracks appear and eventually meltdown ensues. The rise and fall of the crooked E is a fine documentary film and a shot across the bows for the American economy.

Shocker
I bought this DVD to better understand the complex situation surrounding the collapse of Enron. Having no understanding of finance the myriad of books and news articles shed little light on the contoversy for me.
So I watched this and it suddenly became clear what all the fuss as about.
Peter Coyote does a great job of narrating this sorry tale and good direction keeps us wrapt up the story.
Easily accesible to anyone.

A documentary
Didn't know what this was going to be like when I rented it from Amazon. I was surprised and disappointed to find it was a documentary and not a film.

I had to force myself to stay with it as I was in no mood for a documentary, but you find yourself being drawn in to the DVD wanting a bit more info, then I found myself yawning only to be drawn back in again.

It was a very interesting DVD, It is watchable, but don`t expect bubble gum TV from it, and your be amazed what the so called smartest people in the room got away with.