Enron:The Smartest Guys in the Room

For sixteen years Enron was considered a safe bet in American trade. This power and gas corporation was the seventh largest company in America and their stocks kept rising. In 2001 it all crashed. Within a couple of weeks Enron went bankrupt, its leadership got away with millions of dollars each, and 20,000 employees were left with practically nothing. In this documentary, the established filmmaker Alex Gibney uses the Enron slogan ”Ask Why” and explores what really happened during one of history’s greatest corporate scandals. It is a thrilling story about pride, arrogance, greed and the hidden side of capitalism. Gibney reveals links to the major banks of the world and all the way up to the White House. He shows the cold, money-grubbing traders taking advantage of the Californian blackouts, and the deliberate hiding of the truth in a way in which anyone could grasp.The film was chosen as part of the Official Selection at Sundance Film Festival 2005, and is based on the best-selling book The Smartest Guys in the Room by Fortune Magazine reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, who were among the first to see that something was wrong. Ask Why and you´ll get some disturbing answers.PETTER CAVELLIN