Enron, The Smartest Guys in the Room is as clear an example as any that conspiracy theorists are on the money. Sometimes anyway. One of the more scandalous documentaries of recent years, it charts the rise and spectacular fall of America’s (then) most powerful and lucrative energy company. Styled somewhere between Mike Moore’s Bush-bating and the goofy, I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening black comedy of The Yes Men, Enron is a few-holds barred exposé that should have you screaming in the aisles. Outrage or fear, it’s all the same in the end. The behemoth that was the Enron Corporation became America’s largest and most powerful energy company under the chairmanship of Kenneth Lay, a close friend and ally of the Bush Family. With the assistance of Anderson Accounting, he and office-mate Jeff Skilling changed the way America did business. In one sleight of corporate hand, laws were changed to allow trading in Californian energy stock. As that state was plunged into rolling black-outs and teetered on the brink of collapse, Enron pocketed enormous profits and the Guvernator was elected. Of course, all stars fade and this was no exception, yet the speed at which the company went supernova would even surprise a President, unable to help his old friend. Enron is a riveting account of greed and mistrust that makes stock-broking floors of the late 80’s seem positively pedestrian. It is also a cautionary tale about the damage that can be wrought by unchecked, globalised economies where ethics is a dirty word. As frightening as any horror story can be, don’t think we’ve head the last of this. Watch it and scream. 

// COLIN FRASER