Documentary
United States of America
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is a documentary film directed by Alex Gibney that delves into the rise and fall of the Enron Corporation, one of the largest energy companies in the world, and its executives who manipulated the company's finances to keep their profits soaring even as the company's financial health began to weaken.
The film features interviews with former Enron employees, government officials, financial analysts, and journalists who covered the company's downfall. It shows how Enron's executives, including CEO Kenneth Lay, CFO Andrew Fastow, and CEO Jeffrey Skilling, used creative accounting practices to artificially inflate the company's stock price and hide its debt, making them all quite wealthy in the process.
The documentary explores how Enron's executives launched various schemes to conceal the company's financial troubles, such as creating shell companies and using offshore accounts to hide losses. Moreover, the film highlights the role that auditing firm Arthur Andersen played in allowing Enron's fraudulent activities to go undetected for years.
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, makes it clear that the unethical and fraudulent practices of Enron's leadership had devastating consequences for the company's employees, shareholders, and the wider public when its house of cards finally collapsed in 2001. The film serves as a cautionary tale of how unchecked greed and corruption can lead to the downfall of even the smartest and most powerful businessmen in the world.
