June 9, 2005 -- Enron is certainly an easy target for investigative reporting in general, so it is no surprise that documentary filmmakers have this historic financial disaster in their crosshairs.

This documentary covers what you've heard in the news, of course, but it digs deeper into the monumental corporate fraud at the very top of Enron, and the company's close ties to the White House. Also of interest, Enron's manipulation of the electricity market in California and how it manufactured the power blackouts that led to huge profits for the company. This was done, in part, though the manipulation of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (the head of FERC was hand-picked by Enron). Enron lobbied hard for energy market de-regulation, and profited from that policy while millions of people paid billions of dollars in increased energy bills. The film implies that President Bush could have put a stop to the California power blackouts engineered by Enron, but had no wish to bail out Democratic Governor Gray Davis. The Bush administration's inaction on the blackouts ultimately led to Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming governor of California.

Enron is long gone, but its influence on national energy policy remains. How much Enron affected energy policy, and how much it affected Bush's current energy proposals remains a mystery. It remains a mystery because high-level White House energy strategy sessions were closed to the public and records from those meetings have never been released to the public. The White House has fought every attempt by Congress and the public to find out what went on in these high-level energy planning sessions which led to the formation of Bush's energy proposals.

The documentary not only talks about national policy and politics, but human drama. The rise and fall of executives plays out like a Shakespearean tragedy. Individual employees who had nothing to do with Enron's illegal schemes also suffered, like a worker for Portland General Electric interviewed in the film. After PGE was bought out by Enron, all his PGE stock became Enron stock, which eventually became worthless. Billions of dollars were lost in pension plans all over the nation because of Enron. Others lost not only their pensions, but their jobs as well. Whole companies went out of business after the fall of Enron. The film also focuses on the few white hats, the whistleblowers and others who came forward to expose the fraud, at great cost to themselves.

The top level executives at Enron made millions when others were losing their shirts. Some have paid the price for their crimes. It remains to be seen if any others will pay the price. White collar crimes of this sort are very difficult to prosecute, and executives who cashed in before the collapse of Enron have the money to buy the very best lawyers. A good example of this is the recent case in which federal prosecutors failed in an appeal to sustain a conviction on a coverup case in which tons of Enron documents were shredded. The film reveals that one executive who got out before the collapse is now the largest private land owner in Colorado. He is not being accused of any wrongdoing, since he left the company before many of the abuses occurred. The film also reveals that the usual safeguards against this kind of fraud all failed, the Securities and Exchange Commission, FERC, the accountants, the stock analysts, all dropped the ball, except for a few scattered rebels. The truth about Enron was finally exposed by the news media, that oft-maligned institution. Bethany McLean wrote an article in Fortune magazine which was the first to point out that Enron's financial numbers made no sense. She later wrote a novel which formed the basis of this film. An article by the Wall Street Journal sounded the company's death knell. Small wonder the media is under attack by the right wing of the Republican party. They don't like it when the media points out the emperor is without clothes.

So if you've heard about Enron, but don't understand what the company did, or what kind of accounting tricks it used to make it appear profitable when it was losing money, or you hadn't heard about the Enron connections to the Bush family, this is the film for you. It also gives you some insight into the thinking of Enron's top executives and how they managed to pull off this gigantic scam. Maybe they really were the smartest guys in the room after all. This film rates a B.

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Copyright © 2005 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

Robert Roten can be reached via e-mail at .