Movie Review: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Haas was giving a free screening of The Smartest Guys in the Room tonight, so I went to go check it out. I'm shocked at how much I enjoyed this film, and also how educational it was for a really entertaining movie. I'd totally recommend it to anyone -- especially if you have ties to Portland or California (the everyday lives of people living in both places were impacted heavily by what went down at Enron). Put it on your Netflix list.

For those of you who haven't heard about The Smartest Guys in the Room before, it's a documentary that investigates how the Enron scandal came to be. It goes through the circumstances and events that led up to Enron's filing for bankruptcy, as well as those that followed, but more importantly the film is a character study of the major players involved. The movie asks and answers the question, "How can a business scandal this extreme occur today?"

One thing I appreciated about this movie is that it's not overtly political (though it does cover politics and political consequences of the scandal). You also don't come away with the feeling that the film makers are condemning all big business. They treat Enron as a unique occurrence that should be learned from. I think a lot of us have become accustomed to Michael Moore-style documentaries, where the viewer comes out feeling like she's just drowned Moore's biases and personal agenda. Moore seems so gimmicky and over the top a lot of the time. Though I often respect his stance, I feel he's prone to total overkill.