The first half of the film concentrates on Jeff Skilling with plenty of bashing. There's also a slam of former CEO Lou Pi who had a major fascination with strippers. According to former employees, Pi left Enron after getting a divorce and marrying his stripper girlfriend, making $250 million. It reports he has became the second largest landowner in Colorado.
There are scenes showing the close connection between both GW and his father and Ken Lay. It's comical to watch Alan Greenspan giving an award to Ken Lay.
The sound track is very eclectic. Billie Holliday to Marilyn Manson. There are plenty of visuals, from skydivers to the Simpsons.
The second half of the film attacks Andy Fastow, who is introduced by the Traffic song, "Dear Mr. Fantasy," while images of a magician with a black hat and rabbits fill the screen. There's the obligatory shots of Fastow taking the Fifth and his perp walk.
The section on the California energy crisis is well done. It also makes the lower level Enron traders look terrible. They'd rob a corpse. Gray Davis is portrayed as a victim of Bush and Cheney, who in turn come across as pathetic for their inaction and their ties to Enron and Lay. There are scenes from the Gray Davis - Arnold Schwarzenegger campaign, with Jay Leno introducing Arnold after his win.
The film tries to make the point that Enron is symbolic of a larger failure of moral culture in the country. "Synergistic corruption" is one phrase used. It suggests that like the Enron traders, we all lose our moral compass once we arrive at work. I don't buy it. Enron is about accounting fraud and employee greed. My question after watching the film is how and why did Enron, which truly was the Emperor with No Clothes, escape the scrutiny of business reporters, market analysts and institutional investors for so long? They seem to have been asleep at the switch.
The film succeeds in explaining the complex stock, energy and accounting issues in terms you can understand. It's very watchable and moves fast. It pushes your emotional buttons and it's hard not to have a visceral disgust for Ken Lay. But it overdoes it at times. I thought The Simpson's scene crossed the line into farce. The maudlin tone at the end seems overly melodramatic and the multiple references to the Titanic seem trite.
Other gripes: The final segment on the fall of Enron and its leaders is too moralistic for my taste. They even bring in a Priest to comment about losing one's soul. The employees provide amateur psychoanalysis of their former bosses - but they all have axes to grind and no qualifications in this area.
Jeff Skilling, Ken Lay and Richard Causey go on trial in January. Their defenses to the criminal charges, which I would think are discernible from court pleadings, are not mentioned in the film.
By all means, see the movie. It's very well done. But by all means, remember, it is the equivalent of the Government's opening statement and the real trial takes place in the courtroom, not on a movie screen.
You can watch trailers here and here. There's even an official weblog here.
