ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM
A gripping corporate mystery for discerning adults.
Should You Watch It?
ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM turns a complicated corporate collapse into an engaging mystery. It explains how Enron grew from a Texas natural gas company into an international energy-trading giant, then follows the accounting practices and executive decisions that hid losses and misled investors.
The film is entertaining and educational, but its subject is deeply sobering. Enron executives lied and cashed in while 20,000 employees lost their life savings. The movie’s moral force comes from its clear rebuke of greed, hubris, selfishness, and dishonesty.
The cost is real: strong language, a strip-club scene with brief nudity, and troubling material involving fraud, suicide, and theft. Adults who can handle those concerns should find the documentary worth seeing; families with children or young teens should choose something else.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESEnron begins as a Texas natural gas company and expands into energy trading, electric power, and an Internet bandwidth venture. Fortune magazine celebrates the company as one of America’s most innovative and desirable businesses.
Behind the praise, however, executives are using accounting practices that make projected profits look current and corporate debt difficult for investors to see. The documentary follows the company’s leaders and traces how the celebrated empire begins to come apart.
Is It Any Good?
Three stars means this is a very good documentary with real strengths. It is compelling, fast-paced, engaging, and remarkably easy to follow despite the complexity of Enron’s finances. Following the company’s trail feels almost like solving a huge mystery.
The film also manages to be entertaining, educational, and alarming. Its subject matter is sobering, but the documentary keeps the investigation moving and gives viewers a clear picture of how the deception worked.
The Worldview
The documentary presents greed, lying, corporate fraud, selfishness, and theft as moral evils rather than admirable signs of ambition. That aligns with a biblical view of human sinfulness and the destructive power of loving money. It also includes a Christian interjection from a priest who counseled some Enron employees.
The film remains mostly apolitical as it follows the trail of corporate lies, but it raises questions about the relationships between Ken Lay and George W. Bush and his father. No explicit claims are made; the filmmakers imply that those connections may have influenced decisions about harsher punishment.
The film’s central warning is that wealth, innovation, and public praise cannot make dishonesty right. Scripture says, “For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice” (James 3:16).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Content Summary
Moral worldview that rebukes greed, lying and selfishness, with an implication that the Bush family has personal reasons for not coming down harder on former Enron CEO Ken Lay, and a Christian interjection from a priest who counseled some Enron employees; 14 obscenities, most of which were toward the end of the movie in a taped conversation, and one profanity; strippers shown; brief reenactment inside a strip bar with upper female nudity; and, extreme greed, corporate fraud, lying and lying by omission, discussion of one executive’s suicide, extreme selfishness, and stealing, all rebuked.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
What kinds of choices can make success look impressive while hiding harm to other people?
Proverbs 11:1 · Luke 16:10–12The film portrays greed and selfishness as destructive. How does Scripture distinguish wise stewardship from loving money?
Matthew 6:19–21 · 1 Timothy 6:9–10What responsibilities do leaders have toward employees, investors, and the public?
Luke 12:48 · Philippians 2:3–4Why can public praise and financial success never prove that a company or person is morally right?
Mark 8:36 · James 3:16The Final Word
This is a compelling, clear, and sobering documentary about greed’s power to deceive and destroy. Its mature content makes it unsuitable for children and young teens, but adults who can handle the material should find it worthwhile. WORTH THE TRIP — ADULTS ONLY. For a safer family choice, see.
