Don Johnson Movie:

		List Price: $24.98		Label: Magnolia Salesrank: 24220 Released: September 25, 2006
		Our Price: $14.99
		Used Price: $14.99
		MPAA Rating: R (Restricted) Media: Blu-ray

Editorial Review:
ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM (BLU-RAY DISC)

Description of Enron - The Smartest Guys in the Room [Blu-ray]:
One of the greatest scandals in American corporate history is chronicled in the riveting documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Based on the bestselling book by Fortune magazine reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkin, and directed by Alex Gibney (who also produced The Trials of Henry Kissinger), the film is an epic morality tale, drawing upon a wealth of insider interviews and archival material to show how Enron, once the nation's seventh largest corporate entity, essentially faked its bookkeeping to report profits that never existed. The corrupt and closely-guarded mismanagement by Enron executives (including Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, later placed on criminal trial) is revealed through such heinous concepts as "Hypothetical Future Value" (a way of reaping fortunes based on false profit projections) and the use of offshore "shell" companies to hide the massive losses that eventually toppled the company (along with the venerable Arthur Anderson accounting firm) and left 20,000 employees jobless. As a maddening portrait of hubris and white-collar crime, Enron transcends political and corporate boundaries by showing how smart and powerful men grew blinded by greed and brought ruin upon themselves, along with thousands of otherwise innocent victims. For better and worse, it's a perfect double-feature with eye-opening 2004 documentary The Corporation. --Jeff Shannon

Enron - The Smartest Guys in the Room [Blu-ray] Reviews:
Good, but surprising
2009-11-19 - Good portrayal of a big business going bad as the corruption grew bigger and bigger.

Surprisingly (maybe i missed it), I don't remember Rebecca Mark even being mentioned once throughout the entire program.

Great + important = watch
2009-08-20 - This is a great film/documentary...
Pros:
-Informative and educating about today's issues...
-Well-made

Cons:
-Children (the most crucial members of society, who should be watching this more than anyone) won't be able to watch it, because of the inclusion of a bafflingly unnecessary, long, drawn-out stripper scene, with full-nudity. (it's like actually going to a strip club, except you're watching a documentary). I was so disappointed, because I advocate showing these kinds of documentaries in schools (and at home).

A well written indepth story with only slight biast.
2009-08-19 - I loved this movie. It was a great insight into what went on in the final days of a an amazing intense story. After this you feel like you just watched the latest action movie instead of a documentary. The movie got a good point across; these guys were geniuses, the likes of which American will probably never see again. If a truly "good" corporation had a Lay, Skilling, and Fastow it would not only be an economic powerhouse, but soluble too. The movie was finished, though, I believe slightly before Lay's death, so just know that... he is dead.

Great read, makes you think...
2009-06-29 - This is one of those books I keep meaning to read, but well, the movie came out, so...

I think we all know the story of Enron. I'm an accounting nerd so the story of Enron has always intrigued me. The lack of integrity of the accounting people involved had to be huge. This can be done by one person, it's a team effort. I remember in accounting class (this was back in the 90s before the Enron scandal) the topic of Mark to Market accounting came up and the professor glossed over it, basically just said it was "magic" accounting based off of projections that were "plucked from thin air". I don't know why I remember that, but it always stuck in my head.

I've seen my fair share of creative bookkeeping, cleaned up more than one mess, but I cannot even fathom what must have gone on between Enron and Arthur Andersen.

Anyway... the movie. I have to say that the "sound track" kept me giggling a little. Very well done documentary. It did a good job of telling the story and explaining it so that a lay person can understand it. I think that is the biggest hurdle for people is understanding what went wrong in Enron and how it happened so quickly.

The worst for me was thinking about the 20,000 employees that got screwed out of their retirement. One guy in there sold his 401k that had been worth $348,000 for $1200. Can you imagine?

I was also struck by the connection to the Bush family and the fact that Arnold "The Terminator" was in a meeting (amazingly enough there are no notes from this meeting). Connect the dots, eh? I walked away feeling bad for Gray Davis. I guess I never really connected those dots myself until now. Enron basically forced him out of office.

Anyway, very interesting... I really like documentaries, so I am biased, but this one was really well put together.

Worth seeing, and sharing with a friend.
2009-05-17 - This is a smart and well-paced look both in front of, and behind, the scene to explain what happened with Enron, and how things went so wrong. I highly recommend it to people who want to understand the perils of deregulation of energy markets, and more broadly about how private incentives for capitalists can be so at odds with the public interest. The simple explanation of how California taxpayers were left tens of billions of dollars in the hole because of flawed deregulation and price manipulation is priceless.