Against a wall of opposition, McLean persisted in her belief that the company was somehow inflating its value beyond any reasonable – or realistic – price. Enron opens in the style of a conspiracy thriller before introducing us to journalist Bethany McLean, whose ‘Fortune’ article was both the first shot across Enron’s bow and solid evidence that led to its collapse. His skill lay in taking a story and, drawing on mainstream feature-filmmaking practices, creating a riveting narrative that possesses the energy and drive of a high-octane thriller. Well worth a look and yet another good documentary making it into cinemas.Enron established Gibney as a leading documentary filmmaker of his generation.

A cautionary tale that I doubt that those that needed to learn from have learnt from. However it is well structured and easy to follow, stripping away the feared complexity of the tale and telling it in a fascinating and engaging way. Overall this is not a perfect documentary because it is a bit biased and based on commentary from subjects all on one side of the fence. The film also stretches to bring in Bush and his cronies as if they were also to blame it doesn't labour this point but what little it does is stretched again it could have done less and allowed the audience to draw its own conclusions. Sadly it does use this not to the point of distraction but just to the point where I wondered if the makers didn't think that the facts would be strong enough to make the audience get the point without the extra bit of hammering. Although they lay things out well, the film doesn't manage to avoid nailing its colours to the mast which is a shame because the story is compelling enough and damning enough to work without resorting to cheap digs, funny footage and so on. In fact I did wonder how much this film cost to make because the vast majority of it is stock footage and a handful of interviews. Lesser hands could have fudged the telling but the team here structure it well and use footage from Enron and C-Span to really good effect. With the Enron film it is all the more interesting because it is a prime example of how it all fell down and how easy it is to con the market which, regardless of the legality of the accounting method used, is basically what they did! The film tells the story well and it is a tale that never struggles to fascinate. So I have watched films like this and like The Corporation with interest and appreciate the way that they sell a complex issue in easy to understand ways. Working for an American multinational myself I am always interested and critical of the business model of making more and more money and keeping the stock increasing in value being the only way to survive. However things would eventually catch up with the company and a few years ago the company collapsed in bankruptcy before the arrests began. And it did so, to the point where it was widely praised within the business community and by stockholders. However this could not go on forever and the company was under pressure to continually come up with new ideas to keep the deals and money flowing. With this in place Enron was able to earn money without actually earning money. The method allows a company to claim projected earnings from projects once the deal is signed. When Enron was granted permission to use mark-to-market accounting it saw the start of the dramatic increase in its profits and its share price.

Enron the smartest guys in the room