Strong Response (Rough Draft): Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is a documentary based on the bestselling book, The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron. The book was written by Bethany Mclean, who basically started asking questions about Enron, and she is also featured in the movie giving commentary and discussing her own involvement in uncovering the scandal. The movie begins by chronicling the rise of Enron as a corporation, and it provides the audience with a look into the beginning of unethical and illegal business practices from the very beginning. It also begins by establishing that the documentary will focus on the people of the company rather than just the numbers behind the fraud and downfall of the company. They argue that behind the scandal these were “just people.”

The approach to covering this scandal is unique and definitely helpful when appealing to a mass audience. Alex Gibney opens the scandal up to people without knowledge of business and stock trading. It provides enough information and history about the company and executives to give the audience a basis to understand the scandal that followed. The audience is provided with background information about Ken Lay, and his influence pushing for deregulation of the natural gas industry. Much of the film focuses on the build up and groundwork that leads up to Enron’s fall, and their desperate attempts to salvage bad business deals, poor risk taking, and portray a company with big profits to encourage their stock to continue to climb. It provides the audience with a rich and complex blend of information about basically what Enron did that many outside of the natural gas industries would most likely not have available to them or be able to understand.

A criticism that I would raise about the documentary would be about their basic theme that they begin the movie on: “They were just people.” It is advantageous in appealing to a mass audience, and even perhaps a unique and interesting perspective to focus on the people behind the scandal rather than the finances and numbers. However, I think they limit their perspective and at times take a silly direction. I also believe that they take the easy route and much of what we have heard before in the mass media by demonizing the executives of Enron. I agree that what they did was unethical and illegal, but it’s a story we have already heard play out in the media. Portions of the initial parts of the film just sort of seem like a silly attack on the executives like Lou Pai’s love of strippers. It just seems sort of like the sensational media coverage that typically distracts the public from the facts.

I think a more interesting perspective, and something that has not been previously approached would be to look outside of the hand full of Enron executives. Ken Lay is even feature in the documentary saying that at Enron they are encouraged to always ask why, but the blame is taken off of the lower level workers, and the attack on the executives is continued from the basic media. I think it would be much more interesting and enlightening to examine the circumstances under which all of this happened. Gibney attempts to depict a company that was slowly and continually allowed to take risks and commit fraud before eventually it became so enormous that everything came crumbling down around them. However, it always comes back to the key figures that I think have already been overexposed in previous articles.