Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Film Review | Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Total sausage party, dude. Women have a long way to go in the workplace if they can't even score a few high-profile indictments in corporate bankruptcies of this scale. Unfortunately, the only gals making it to executive offices at this company were outsourced from the local gentlemen's club. Have to give the filmmakers credit in this regard: Although they could not find actual strippers from that era, they do give ample time to actresses aspiring to portray strippers in several dramatic reenactments. While I still can't completely explain what transpired at the company, my impression is that it involved an awful lot of "making shit up"--or, "hypothetical value projections," as they refer to the cutting-edge accounting system of their design, which somehow (read: deregulation) earned SEC approval. "Slanted" and full of commentary from people whose two cents may well suffer the same inflationary pox as Enron's former stock (the participants are not identified often or in any particular detail), the basic narrative of the company is nevertheless compelling and worthwhile -- not to mention timely, as former execs Lay and Skilling finally go to trial.

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