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Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Magnolia Pictures

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room reviews


8.3

based on 37 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 30 votes
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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.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

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

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Fiercely intelligent, terrifying and absurdly funny documentary.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

It's a chilling, completely fascinating documentary.

The Hollywood Reporter James Greenberg

Not only a great cautionary tale, it's a civics lesson that should be seen by every concerned citizen.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

A thoroughly professional, frequently spectacular piece of muckraking.

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.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Should hold you spellbound.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Truly a tale for our time.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Entertaining and enraging.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Soberly entertaining documentary.

Film Threat Peter Hanson

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

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.

Variety Joe Leydon

By turns amazing, amusing and appalling.

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.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

A tight, fascinating chronicle of arrogance and greed.

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.

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.

New York Post Russell Scott Smith

The story is fascinating, infuriating and even laugh-out-loud funny at times.

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."

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.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Well-knit, generally lucid documentary.

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.

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
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Taylor gave it a2:
Interesting scandal. Horrible movie! So poorly put together.

Joe P gave it an8:
Excellent movie, shows how greed affected the entire country and almost brought the country to its knees in the biggest corporate scandal in US history.

Bill S. gave it a10:
A reflection of how many CEO's have forgotton their real role...to protect their organization, their employees and stockholders...not to fill their pockets and egos.

hollyc gave it a9:
Wow---well made documentary. Easily one of the better movies I've seen recently. I think all Americans---should see the documentary. It is simply an outstanding "crime story" mostly, but illustrates the lone problem in all corporations: stripping individuals of responsibility--and the culture that arrises. It's easy to rape California if that's your job and you're ordered to do so by an authority you've deemed qualified. Heck, this is basically a film ready-made for corporate ethics classes now required at most business schools. I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't used in those classes already! Well done--and I'm certainly now interested in reading the book it was based on.

Evan S. gave it an8:
It's surreal, arresting and depressing to see this kind of thievery in high places. The tone is never shrill or manipulative which feels right once you meet these crooks. Most of those charged in the scandal will be slapped on the hands with a maximum ten year sentence, but after watching this film, it's appalling to think these criminals are running free in Sugarland.

J A gave it an8:
the Tom Waits tune comes up during the credits...when everyone walks out... Anyways, good film, explained a lot to me but I beneffited from having someone with 25 years banking and accounting experience watching it with me, to sort out some of the complicated stuff and point out LIES (I.e- the one about Bush's relationship with Kenneth Lay being unprecented...ha...) The whole thing really comes down to accounting books being cooked and Jeffrey Skilling initially implementing mark to market to wholly take advantage of illegal bookeeping. The emperor has no clothes.

Larry S. gave it a9:
This is better than Roger Moore and his diatribes disguised as “documentaries.” This one is documentary making at its best, relying on fact after fact after interview after interview to build a case, rather than polemics and smart editing as Moore does. Enron is served up as not an act of great thievery by several crooked smart guys, but as a failure of corporatist, deregulated America. Consumers in California were manipulated by phony power shortages directly caused by Enron’s traders, and there are audio tapes of them laughing at their ability to fleece more millions out of the state’s “little people.” Another Enron spin off manipulated the market for bandwidth on the Internet, creating confusion and driving up the price when it was starting to fall. Enron spun all these off from their first accomplshment, droving up natural gas prices when the market wanted to go the other way. Because it makes a factual rather than a polemical case, it can be cited by those of us who want to argue against the deregulators and those who believe that markets and capital investment should be left unfettered to build the New Jerusalem of the rich. Another blemish on the Bush years, and very well done.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room Magnolia Pictures

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Magnolia Pictures