Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room Review

Enron: TSGITR, narrated by Peter Coyote, walks even the lay-est of the lay persons through the twisted economic morales of the Enron corridors. Some attention is needed to filter all of the economic/paper-work/Investor talk, but everything is made perfectly clear to the point where the deception is so unbelievable, the audience can do nothing but laugh in disbelief. And I am one of those layest of the lay-people. There are no theories conjured up here, this isn't a paranoid conspiracy movie. Enron dissolved and dragged thousands of innocent people down with it. This story is simply the cold hard evidence that will likely be laid before the courts once again this coming January.

Ken Lays and Jeff Skilling: You're being brought before the federal courts in January of 2006, and I hope they nail your ass to the wall. You are both failed, empty shells of a human being and I hope that years from now, while you're taking your last breath in a hospital bed (or jail cell), that all the money in the world will fail to let you die in the presence of loved ones. After all this time of fraud and deception, I hope you realize it was all for naught as you die completely and utterly Alone and notice the only thing you'll leave behind is broken homes, sadness and alternatively, joy that you are finally Gone. Is that too harsh? Tough shit.

I'd like to point out that I realise that I should be trying to exercise forgiveness and understanding at this point, but it feels so much nicer this way.

The majority of Enron: TSGITR is compiled of massive amounts of C-Span footage, aquired taped phone conversations, Public Relations and Investors meetings, Company Info sessions and interviews with the Employees and Investigators that were directly involved with the case or the corporation. It all leads up to one gigantic, unsurmountable pile of the dirtiest corporation money scam in the history of people. Firing inquisitive workers, over a tonne of shredded paper trails, failed billion dollar complexs that were claimed to be making record profits: the hog-wash activities of the CEO's of Enron were of such staggering proportions, it's absolutley amazing that they managed to go so long without getting caught. And when they finally do, one Exec pleads the 5th and gets 10 years and another one kills himself and we're just getting warmed up. Not guilty my eye.

Combine this movie with Requiem for a Dream and you'd have one massive life lesson on the nastiest levels of what greed and the addiction to it can do to a human.

Area of the most frustration is, that once again, the victim is the little guy: the Joe Labourer that has been working his whole life putting money away for retirement so he or she can continue taking care of their families. They retire in just a few years and now: all of it: Gone. Nothing. They have nothing. In a few short years, they'll be too old to work and they'll only have a couple grand in the bank and all of the savings over the past 30 years, have been completely evaporated into the tainted books of Enron. And what to the Former (criminal) heads get? 150 million dollar severances that's what. Oh, their date in court is coming, make no mistake, but for the past few years, they've been living high. They've done nothing but lie and swindle AND got caught.. and what do they get? Severance packages only Power-ball lotteries would dream of. Punishment should be: spare them jail time and sentence them to a minimum wage job until retirement, or better yet, work in a village in a 3rd world country.

Granted, this isn't exactly a date movie --yes, yes that explains a lot about why I saw it, yeah, yeah, screw you-- but it brings a very touchy and explosive subject to the forefront. It's not only a fact and anecdote session about what went on behind the walls of Enron, but rather what goes on in our own minds that think up and carry out the things that went on behind the walls of Enron. Being overtaken by money isn't reserved exclusively for the people with millions of dollars, hell, I spent my measely dollars on a 1 in a billion chance on trying to WIN a million dollars just last week. It ain't gonna happen, but I still pissed my few dollars away anyway. Did I care? No. And neither did the guys at Enron. And why would they? It wasn't even their money in the first place.

Stay tuned for the Sequel, coming soon to a Federal Court near you this January.