Video Americain

Review

The story of Enron's rise and fall, under the aegis of Ken Lay and Jeff Stilling, is a primer on unbounded greed, unbridled cynicism and the devastating effects of near-absolute power. Writers Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind take their book to the screen, and director Gibney delivers the complex and convoluted information with fluidity and lucidity, making the Byzantine accessible and the inexplicable understandable. The film outlines how Enron built its reputation on a house of cards (over a pool of gasoline), using and at times creating accounting practices that make a Ponzi scheme look like an honest day's work. As the fiction of earnings grew to astounding proportions, the business practices took on the aura of the Coliseum; there was no mercy. Retirement funds? Gone. Public utilities? Who is this public you speak of? Listen to the Enron traders cackling "Burn, baby, burn," as wildfires rip through California, knowing that their stocks will rise as a result. The Bush family and Enron have a long-standing, symbiotic relationship; the company was the largest contributor to W's first campaign (George the Lesser being a hard-core proponent of deregulation right from the start). As Enron bought those who came to steal the White House, a Darwinian culture of macho bravado and flamboyant risk-taking became the company character. Aided and abetted by Arthur Anderson LLP, the executives garnered millions in bonuses from non-existent profits; a $53 million profit was posted for an enterprise that didn't make a cent. Throughout it all, the agencies purported to oversee practices (banks, accountants) just took their huge fees and signed off; Arthur Anderson took in about a million bucks a week. The California blackouts, which were never about resources, went rolling on; and the smaller fish watched their comfortable retirements disappear. And those cackling West Coast traders made $2 billion (billion!) for Enron. Don't be intimidated by the dense subject matter; the film makes the information accessible, and it's information we need to know.

 -- Ann Yarabinee