Genre: financial documentary
Director: Alex Gibney
Release: 2004
Studio: HDNet Films - Magnolia Pictures
Rating: -
MBiS score: 7.4/10
Wall Street Darlings, Balance Sheet Magicians
Money scandals come and go but their stench carries for decades. In recent times, Enron Corporation has served as a benchmark of sorts and, in his documentary, Alex Gibney dutifully recounts this artificial success story that crippled most people who had banked on it.
This debacle made in Houston has all the elements of a Greek tragedy: a corporate mirage promoted to the point of financial frenzy, two bosses (Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling) so intoxicated by their newfound power that they succumbed to self-aggrandizement (witness Skilling’s “I am Enron” gospel), a cadre of assistants only too eager to pitch in, Wall Street firms deafened by the hoopla, a lot of real money changing hands and a final collapse caused by dissident voices brave enough to question the company’s mystique. On this account, Gibney’s film is both effective in its treatment and appalling in its content. I was especially riled up by the cynicism of several participants and the stranglehold that was applied to the State of California; it is now obvious that State Governor Gray Davis didn’t deserve the blame he was subjected to at the time.
Despite its strengths and importance, however, the film does lose its way in the latter half due to needless philosophizing and, on a more visceral level, it lacks the aggressiveness that Michael Moore would have surely unleashed in such a case; you may argue – and rightly so – that Moore’s vigilante approach wouldn’t have saved anyone but, at least, it would have made the talking heads a bit more palatable. It was also depressing to see some operatives showing little remorse despite the unanimous reprobation that the scandal touched off, Cliff Baxter’s suicide and court convictions; without clear expressions of guilt, the viewer and all Enron victims are left with a sense of hopelessness that neither a tightening of corporate laws nor threats of judicial recourse will ever overcome.
To its credit, the film does ask the biggest question of them all: could such a drama happen again? If you allow for human nature, the answer is clearly yes… and that’s the scariest part of the deal.
MBiS
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