Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Wed 1 Aug 2007 10pm
Smart doc investigating the collapse of the Enron corporation, with interviews with the major players and reams of remarkable first hand footage.

First shown on More4 Jan 2007
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It's a bit too early in the new millennium to be naming the financial scandal of the century, but we can safely say this is going to be one of them.

In the beginning...
In early 2000, Enron was said to be valued at around $65billion. In August 2000, its stock reaches $90 a share, and then began the rapid descent. As rumours of unusual accounting practices grew, shares began spiralling down uncontrollably. By December 2, the company effectively stopped trading. It was the largest bankruptcy in US history.

But the significance of this meltdown doesn't just lie in the astonishing figures. There were real victims, most notably the 20,000 or so employees who lost their jobs and pensions.

Messiahs of a new kind of capitalism
Ruthless and arrogant, the two major players Kenneth Lay and Jeff Skilling built up a near cultish following. Skilling reworked his image with laser eye surgery, macho life-endangering pastimes and designer stubble (although as a photo in this film hilariously shows, he still ironed a crease into his jeans).

They surrounded themselves with sinister henchmen and took in followers who never questioned their ethos and were prepared, as one interviewee eloquently puts it, to "step on someone's throat" to please them.