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34
10,000 B.C.
55
Baby Mama
62
Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The
36
College Road Trip
xx
Dark Knight, The
31
Deception
41
Drillbit Taylor
57
Forbidden Kingdom, The
67
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
54
Get Smart
49
Hancock
34
Happening, The
57
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
xx
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
71
Horton Hears a Who!
61
Incredible Hulk, The
65
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
79
Iron Man
35
Jumper
73
Kung Fu Panda
24
Love Guru, The
37
Made of Honor
xx
Mamma Mia!
58
Mist, The
48
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
55
Nim's Island
22
Postal
69
Redbelt
44
Ruins, The
53
Sex and the City: The Movie
76
Shine a Light
37
Shutter
37
Speed Racer
61
Stop Loss
47
Strangers, The
55
Street Kings
33
Superhero Movie
93
WALL-E
64
Wanted
36
What Happens in Vegas...
54
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
93
WALL-E
79
Iron Man
76
Shine a Light
73
Kung Fu Panda
71
Horton Hears a Who!
69
Redbelt
67
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
65
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
64
Wanted
62
Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The
61
Stop Loss
61
Incredible Hulk, The
58
Mist, The
57
Forbidden Kingdom, The
57
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
55
Street Kings
55
Nim's Island
55
Baby Mama
54
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
54
Get Smart
53
Sex and the City: The Movie
49
Hancock
48
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
47
Strangers, The
44
Ruins, The
41
Drillbit Taylor
37
Made of Honor
37
Shutter
37
Speed Racer
36
College Road Trip
36
What Happens in Vegas...
35
Jumper
34
Happening, The
34
10,000 B.C.
33
Superhero Movie
31
Deception
24
Love Guru, The
22
Postal
xx
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
xx
Mamma Mia!
xx
Dark Knight, The
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

83
Alexandra
80
Band's Visit, The
76
Beauty in Trouble
47
Bella
80
Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
59
Blind Mountain
55
Bra Boys
60
Brick Lane
70
Caramel
49
Children of Huang Shi, The
83
Chop Shop
83
Chris & Don. A Love Story
78
Counterfeiters, The
52
Diminished Capacity
64
Dreams with Sharp Teeth
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
84
Edge of Heaven, The
52
Elsa & Fred
79
Encounters at the End of the World
62
Expired
64
Fall, The
51
Finding Amanda
57
Flawless
86
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
63
Foot Fist Way, The
60
Fugitive Pieces
45
Full Grown Men
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
69
Go-Getter, The
74
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
63
Gunnin for that #1 Spot
68
Heartbeat Detector
34
Holding Trevor
68
Honeydripper
55
Irina Palm
69
Jellyfish
60
Jihad for Love, A
68
Kabluey
62
Kiss the Bride
63
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
82
Last Mistress, The
38
Life Before Her Eyes, The
70
Love Songs
64
Married Life
30
Meet Bill
33
Miss Conception
53
Mister Lonely
75
Mongol
52
Mother of Tears, The
52
My Blueberry Nights
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
84
My Winnipeg
61
On the Rumba River
69
Operation Filmmaker
61
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
83
Paranoid Park
72
Priceless
51
Promotion, The
55
Quid Pro Quo
29
Red Roses and Petrol
79
Reprise
71
Roman de gare
56
Sangre de mi sangre
51
Savage Grace
76
Shotgun Stories
66
Son of Rambow
70
Standard Operating Procedure
62
Stuck
72
Surfwise
81
Tell No One
56
Then She Found Me
xx
Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
71
To the Limit
54
Tracey Fragments, The
70
Trumbo
72
Tuya's Marriage
83
U2 3D
56
Unknown Woman
86
Up the Yangtze
79
Visitor, The
62
Wackness, The
37
War, Inc.
64
Water Lilies
66
When Did You Last See Your Father?
55
Without the King
72
Woman on the Beach
64
XXY
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75
Young@Heart
86
Up the Yangtze
86
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
84
My Winnipeg
84
Edge of Heaven, The
83
Chop Shop
83
Paranoid Park
83
Alexandra
83
U2 3D
83
Chris & Don. A Love Story
82
Last Mistress, The
81
Tell No One
80
Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
80
Band's Visit, The
79
Reprise
79
Encounters at the End of the World
79
Visitor, The
78
Counterfeiters, The
76
Beauty in Trouble
76
Shotgun Stories
75
Young@Heart
75
Mongol
74
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
72
Woman on the Beach
72
Priceless
72
Tuya's Marriage
72
Surfwise
71
To the Limit
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
71
Roman de gare
70
Standard Operating Procedure
70
Trumbo
70
Love Songs
70
Caramel
69
Go-Getter, The
69
Operation Filmmaker
69
Jellyfish
68
Kabluey
68
Heartbeat Detector
68
Honeydripper
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
66
Son of Rambow
66
When Did You Last See Your Father?
64
Married Life
64
Dreams with Sharp Teeth
64
XXY
64
Water Lilies
64
Fall, The
63
Foot Fist Way, The
63
Gunnin for that #1 Spot
63
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
62
Wackness, The
62
Stuck
62
Expired
62
Kiss the Bride
61
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
61
On the Rumba River
60
Fugitive Pieces
60
Brick Lane
60
Jihad for Love, A
59
Blind Mountain
57
Flawless
56
Unknown Woman
56
Then She Found Me
56
Sangre de mi sangre
55
Quid Pro Quo
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
55
Irina Palm
55
Bra Boys
55
Without the King
54
Tracey Fragments, The
53
Mister Lonely
52
Diminished Capacity
52
Elsa & Fred
52
Mother of Tears, The
52
My Blueberry Nights
51
Finding Amanda
51
Promotion, The
51
Savage Grace
49
Children of Huang Shi, The
47
Bella
45
Full Grown Men
38
Life Before Her Eyes, The
37
War, Inc.
34
Holding Trevor
33
Miss Conception
30
Meet Bill
29
Red Roses and Petrol
xx
Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Magnolia Pictures
FILM:
MPAA RATING: Not Rated
Starring
Ken Lay
This documentary is the inside story of one of history's greatest business scandals, in which top executives of America's 7th largest company walked away with over one billion dollars while investors and employees lost everything. (Magnolia Pictures)
| GENRE(S): |
Documentary
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Alex Gibney
Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind (book The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Alex Gibney
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: January 17, 2006
Theatrical: April 22, 2005
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
110 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
Nominated, Grand Jury Prize (Documentary), 2005 Sundance Film Festival

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
A deeply straightforward yet beautifully crafted documentary.

100
Premiere
Peter Debruge
Delivers a polished and well-researched look at America 's largest corporate bankruptcy with a laser-sharp focus on the personalities, practices, and fates of the top executives behind the Enron meltdown.

100
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Spellbinding.

100
San Francisco Chronicle
Jonathan Curiel
More than worthwhile.

100
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
With no-nonsense narration by Peter Coyote and a soundtrack that's at once apt, ironic and really, really good, The Smartest Guys in the Room is anything but a dry dissection of a major Wall Street debacle.

100
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
The movie grows richer as it goes along and contrasting pieces click together.

100
Empire
Helen O'Hara
Despite the talking heads and grainy blow-ups of TV footage, the film boasts some rather gorgeous cinematography and moves briskly, with the interviews masterfully edited.

91
Portland Oregonian
Marc Mohan
With this amoral business environment, it's not a question of if there will be another Enron, but when.

90
LA Weekly
Scott Foundas
Fiercely intelligent, terrifying and absurdly funny documentary.

90
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
It's a chilling, completely fascinating documentary.

90
The Hollywood Reporter
James Greenberg
Not only a great cautionary tale, it's a civics lesson that should be seen by every concerned citizen.

90
Dallas Observer
Bill Gallo
A thoroughly professional, frequently spectacular piece of muckraking.

88
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
Is a movie worthwhile if it makes you sick?
Absolutely, in the case of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.

88
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
Should hold you spellbound.

88
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Truly a tale for our time.

88
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
Entertaining and enraging.

88
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
This is not a political documentary. It is a crime story. No matter what your politics, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room will make you mad.

88
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
Gordon Gekko didn't disappear with the 1980s; he just became a lot more difficult to pick out from a crowd.

83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
Based on a best-selling book by Fortune magazine writers Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, the film approaches Enron through the Horatio Alger saga of its founder, Kenneth Lay, the son of a dirt-poor Missouri Baptist minister.

80
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
To my taste the only serious distraction and ethical lapse is Gibney's sarcastic, cheap-shot use of popular songs like "That Old Black Magic," "Love for Sale," and "God Bless the Child" to underscore certain points; it seems almost to celebrate the shamelessness of the creeps being exposed.

80
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Gives us the same sort of perverse pleasure that's been a staple of "60 Minutes" over the years -- watching world-class crooks tell world-class lies.
80
Washington Post
Michael O'Sullivan
It's a story of jaw-dropping chutzpah, grim, mostly hindsight-based humor and more stomach-churning drama than you could find in 10 screenplays.

80
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scott Tobias
Handsomely produced and photographed, which alone distinguishes it from the guerrilla standards of its cut-rate peers, Enron succeeds most by simply making a complex situation graspable, a tall order when the perpetrators are masters of grand-scale deception.

80
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
Soberly entertaining documentary.

80
Film Threat
Peter Hanson
It’s only by understanding what went wrong that we can hope to recognize the warning signs next time.

80
New York Magazine
Ken Tucker
The most blessedly traditional sort of documentary. It follows the twisty, complicated rise and fall of Enron in steady, chronological order, from the mid-eighties to the present.

80
Variety
Joe Leydon
By turns amazing, amusing and appalling.

80
Slate
David Edelstein
The documentary cannot be called muckraking, as the muck has already been well-raked, but Gibney's recounting has a touch of playful sadism that I quite enjoyed.

80
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
A tight, fascinating chronicle of arrogance and greed.

78
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
Despite these biases, the movie helps the average American understand the nature of the shell games perpetuated by Enron and how "synergistic corruptions" can corrupt absolutely.

75
USA Today
Claudia Puig
The film's most climactic moments involve the chilling audiotapes of avaricious Enron traders as they toy with California's energy crisis, wringing millions in profits from the misfortune of an entire state.

75
New York Post
Russell Scott Smith
The story is fascinating, infuriating and even laugh-out-loud funny at times.

75
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
It's scarier than "The Amityville Horror," as scandalous as "Fahrenheit 9/11" and loaded with more conspiracies than "The Interpreter."

70
TV Guide
Ken Fox
It's a fascinating story teeming with pride, arrogance, greed and overweening hubris, and Gibney attempts to give it all an added dimension by finding the archetypes of Greek tragedy among the sleazy deals and Ponzi-scheme financing.

70
The New Republic
Stanley Kauffmann
Well-knit, generally lucid documentary.

63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Stephen Cole
Surely the real story of Enron is that so many accountants, lawyers, bankers and politicians were willing to call a dog a duck in order to remain happy insiders in the world's biggest pyramid scheme.

50
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
Amid the infoglut that surrounds us, Gibney's film feels too much like more noise. Is it telling the most important business story of our lifetimes, or is it just another fantastical yarn, crammed into the schedule after Scott and Laci Peterson, but before Charlemagne and the ancient Peruvian astronauts?


The average user rating for this movie is 8.3 (out of 10) based on 30 User Votes
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