ENRON Movie Review Black Los Angeles

BlackNLA Movie Reviews

*****THE REEL DEAL: Reviewz from the Street*****

by Edwardo Jackson

BIASES: late 20s black male; frustrated screenwriter who favors action, comedy, and glossy, big budget movies over indie flicks, kiddie flicks, and weepy Merchant Ivory fare

ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM (Unrated)

MOVIE BIASES: Somebody better give me some straight answers…

MAJOR PLAYERS: Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, narrator Peter Coyote (Jagged Edge), based on the book by Peter Elkind & Bethany McLean, and writer/director Alex Gibney

Described as "a house of cards…built over a pool of gasoline," we all know the Enron scandal/collapse, one of the biggest bankruptcies and crimes in corporate history. Yet do you know the real story? Studded to the gills with all the characters and themes of a classic (lack of) morality tale, "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" shows that the true victims here weren't the employees who lost $2 billion
in pensions while the executives sailed out with platinum-plus parachutes in the hundreds of millions. No, the true victims here are those very same executives, victims of their own greed, hubris, and outsized pride which, in turn, ended up victimizing our nation as a whole.

Starting off with a dramatic recreation of Enron exec Cliff Baxter's suicide shooting, "Enron" paints a corporate history of the company as you would ever a great screenplay: a play with three acts. Act One introduces us to Enron founder Ken Lay, son of a lifelong poor Baptist preacher with a Ph. D. in Economics who is almost-literally in bed with the Bush family for decades. When Bush 41 wasn't getting billions in legislative and tax breaks for Enron, future Bush 43, as governor
of the state of Texas, was videotaping back-slapping lovefests of friendship for "Kenny Boy" Lay. Act Two brings us the rising action in the singlehanded form of risk-taking, alpha male, yahoo adventurer CEO Jeffrey Skilling. Depicted as a nerd who reinvented himself as Tom Cruise circa "Top Gun" of the business world, Skilling instituted an energy trading market for Enron alone, a Darwinian cutthroat corporate culture of politically based social climbing, and, his most damning
achievement, the "mark to market" accounting system, which is basically assuming future profits at the time of signing deals instead of realized profits (think counting your chickens before they've hatched). And we all know Act Three (cue lighting of gasoline pool now).

If you had sent any studio in Hollywood this script, it would have been rejected all over town as patently unbelievable if it weren't all so true. At times, I felt like I was watching a real life version of a Star Wars movie. Evil alliances (Enron, Arthur Andersen)? Check. Shadowy, invisible assassin CEOs (with a hilarious penchant for strippers when not ruthlessly firing people)? Natch. Rogue energy traders "arbitraging" (stealing) money through the artificially created and controlled energy "crisis" of California in 2000? Oh, you betcha. From bug-eyed traders drunk with power to lone whistleblowing heroines (accounting exec Sherron Watkins), with scapegoats and fall guys (jailed CFO Andrew Fastow) in between, to call "Enron" a
fascinating study of corporate criminal culture is to call a bank robbery a misdemeanor.

Director Alex Gibney, with strong, steady, almost-impartial narration by Peter Coyote, throws it all in there – accounts from ex-traders, executives, and financial analysts are interspersed with TV footage of Congressional hearings featuring the crusading California Senator Barbara Boxer bushwhacking (pun intended) Skilling
and Lay before a live studio audience. If shock and awe aren't enough (execs sold a billion in stock while the rank and file employees were frozen out of their options; employees were given only THIRTY minutes to clear out of the building after the bankruptcy announcement), Gibney also employs humor (an inspired showing of a "The Simpsons" segment where the titular clan board an amusement park ride called the "Enron Ride of Broken Dreams"). Flavored with a kitschy, '90s soundtrack of songs mixed with old-timey standards, "Enron" feels vaguely reminiscent like a dull hangover after a night of drinking as well as archetypal and institutional, like doing your taxes; corporate corruption is as old and persistent as corporations themselves.

Where Gibney falters, if at all, is in his timeline. He needs to provide more specificity on dates and a clearly delineated series of events, no matter how dramatically rearranged for narrative effect. Even though I lived through the so-called California energy crisis Enron created, I had a tough time keeping up with the chronological events.

Let's look at the $30 billion California energy fiasco, the height of Enron's arrogance, shall we? When the energy traders weren't arbitrarily shuttering power plants to regulate, I mean INFLATE, the partially deregulated California market, they were gleefully laughing (on tape, no less) at inventing ways to shuffle around power in order to further rape the California power grid. Eventual casualties included the California resident, former governor Gray Davis ousted in a recall election, and our own naiveté in the beneficence of the American corporation. If you believe in right and wrong, this movie will infuriate you, politics be damned.

"You know what the difference is between California and the Titanic?" Jeffrey Skilling joked on a company webcast during Enron's heyday. "At least when the Titanic went down, the lights were on." Touché, Jeffrey. But as the clear cut Darth Vader of this Greek tragedy, now awaiting trial in '06 for a host of criminal charges, are yours still on?

@@@ REELS
(THREE REELS)
It's pretty hot – go give it a shot.

Like what you read? Agree/disagree with The Reel Deal? Think he's talkin' out his...HUSH YO' MOUF! (I'm only talkin' about The Reel Deal!) Email him at ReelReviewz@aol.com!

Edwardo Jackson is the author of the novels EVER AFTER and NEVA HAFTA, (Villard/Random House), a writer for UrbanFilmPremiere.com, and an LA-based screenwriter. Visit his website at www.edwardojackson.com




			BlackNLA Movie Reviews ***THE REEL DEAL: Reviewz from the Street*** by Edwardo Jackson BIASES: late 20s black male; frustrated screenwriter who favors action, comedy, and glossy, big budget movies over indie flicks, kiddie flicks, and weepy Merchant Ivory fare ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM (Unrated) MOVIE BIASES: Somebody better give me some straight answers… MAJOR PLAYERS: Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, narrator Peter Coyote (Jagged Edge), based on the book by Peter Elkind & Bethany McLean, and writer/director Alex Gibney Described as "a house of cards…built over a pool of gasoline," we all know the Enron scandal/collapse, one of the biggest bankruptcies and crimes in corporate history. Yet do you know the real story? Studded to the gills with all the characters and themes of a classic (lack of) morality tale, "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" shows that the true victims here weren't the employees who lost $2 billion in pensions while the executives sailed out with platinum-plus parachutes in the hundreds of millions. No, the true victims here are those very same executives, victims of their own greed, hubris, and outsized pride which, in turn, ended up victimizing our nation as a whole. Starting off with a dramatic recreation of Enron exec Cliff Baxter's suicide shooting, "Enron" paints a corporate history of the company as you would ever a great screenplay: a play with three acts. Act One introduces us to Enron founder Ken Lay, son of a lifelong poor Baptist preacher with a Ph. D. in Economics who is almost-literally in bed with the Bush family for decades. When Bush 41 wasn't getting billions in legislative and tax breaks for Enron, future Bush 43, as governor of the state of Texas, was videotaping back-slapping lovefests of friendship for "Kenny Boy" Lay. Act Two brings us the rising action in the singlehanded form of risk-taking, alpha male, yahoo adventurer CEO Jeffrey Skilling. Depicted as a nerd who reinvented himself as Tom Cruise circa "Top Gun" of the business world, Skilling instituted an energy trading market for Enron alone, a Darwinian cutthroat corporate culture of politically based social climbing, and, his most damning achievement, the "mark to market" accounting system, which is basically assuming future profits at the time of signing deals instead of realized profits (think counting your chickens before they've hatched). And we all know Act Three (cue lighting of gasoline pool now). If you had sent any studio in Hollywood this script, it would have been rejected all over town as patently unbelievable if it weren't all so true. At times, I felt like I was watching a real life version of a Star Wars movie. Evil alliances (Enron, Arthur Andersen)? Check. Shadowy, invisible assassin CEOs (with a hilarious penchant for strippers when not ruthlessly firing people)? Natch. Rogue energy traders "arbitraging" (stealing) money through the artificially created and controlled energy "crisis" of California in 2000? Oh, you betcha. From bug-eyed traders drunk with power to lone whistleblowing heroines (accounting exec Sherron Watkins), with scapegoats and fall guys (jailed CFO Andrew Fastow) in between, to call "Enron" a fascinating study of corporate criminal culture is to call a bank robbery a misdemeanor. Director Alex Gibney, with strong, steady, almost-impartial narration by Peter Coyote, throws it all in there – accounts from ex-traders, executives, and financial analysts are interspersed with TV footage of Congressional hearings featuring the crusading California Senator Barbara Boxer bushwhacking (pun intended) Skilling and Lay before a live studio audience. If shock and awe aren't enough (execs sold a billion in stock while the rank and file employees were frozen out of their options; employees were given only THIRTY minutes to clear out of the building after the bankruptcy announcement), Gibney also employs humor (an inspired showing of a "The Simpsons" segment where the titular clan board an amusement park ride called the "Enron Ride of Broken Dreams"). Flavored with a kitschy, '90s soundtrack of songs mixed with old-timey standards, "Enron" feels vaguely reminiscent like a dull hangover after a night of drinking as well as archetypal and institutional, like doing your taxes; corporate corruption is as old and persistent as corporations themselves. Where Gibney falters, if at all, is in his timeline. He needs to provide more specificity on dates and a clearly delineated series of events, no matter how dramatically rearranged for narrative effect. Even though I lived through the so-called California energy crisis Enron created, I had a tough time keeping up with the chronological events. Let's look at the $30 billion California energy fiasco, the height of Enron's arrogance, shall we? When the energy traders weren't arbitrarily shuttering power plants to regulate, I mean INFLATE, the partially deregulated California market, they were gleefully laughing (on tape, no less) at inventing ways to shuffle around power in order to further rape the California power grid. Eventual casualties included the California resident, former governor Gray Davis ousted in a recall election, and our own naiveté in the beneficence of the American corporation. If you believe in right and wrong, this movie will infuriate you, politics be damned. "You know what the difference is between California and the Titanic?" Jeffrey Skilling joked on a company webcast during Enron's heyday. "At least when the Titanic went down, the lights were on." Touché, Jeffrey. But as the clear cut Darth Vader of this Greek tragedy, now awaiting trial in '06 for a host of criminal charges, are yours still on? @@@ REELS (THREE REELS) It's pretty hot – go give it a shot. Like what you read? Agree/disagree with The Reel Deal? Think he's talkin' out his...HUSH YO' MOUF! (I'm only talkin' about The Reel Deal!) Email him at ReelReviewz@aol.com! Edwardo Jackson is the author of the novels EVER AFTER and NEVA HAFTA, (Villard/Random House), a writer for UrbanFilmPremiere.com, and an LA-based screenwriter. Visit his website at www.edwardojackson.com Â© 2004, Edwardo Jackson