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Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room (Blu-Ray)
Blu-ray ALL - America - Magnolia Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak (15th December 2006). |
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The Film
 It's amazing how life imitates art, just recently I reviewed the Akira Kurosawa film "The Bad Sleep Well", the film deals with high level corporate corruption. In an effort to keep their dirty dealings secret an executive was forced to take his life to protect other higher up management. However, greed has been around much longer than the art portraying it, for as long as humans have had a fundamental 'want' greed has existed. And it's greed that propelled Enron onto the track that eventually led to a tragic fate for the 30,000 employees and for the millions of people that Enron stepped on in California in order to get themselves out of a hole made larger everyday by the fabrication of profits that never existed. This is a tale of greed, a tale of corruption, a tale of tragic figures caught in self-serving game that led to fall of one of America's largest corporations. In Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) delivers what has become the tag line for Corporate America in the 1980's "Greed is good", well the actual quote is "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms - greed for life, for money, knowledge - has marked the upward surge of mankind" replace the word "mankind" with "Enron" and you've pretty much summed up what this documentary is ultimately about. "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" is based on the book of the same name by Fortune Magazine reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind that exposes the scandal in it's entirety, the building blocks that were set-up to increase Enron stock, the key figures responsible, the steps taken, the company's rise and it's fall. Filmmaker Alex Gibney has done a fine job in taking this complex story and unraveling the layers to give audiences a clear understanding of what actually developed. It's interesting to come into this not knowing a lot (obviously I was aware of the scandal when it hit the news) but I was not aware of the reasons the company collapsed and any of the people that were directly involved amongst it all. The documentary works well in establishing the key elements that led to the company's demise as well as takes a closer look at the personalities of the executives, the film incorporates expert analysis from the Fortune magazine reporters that wrote the book, former employees, recorded conversations, corporate videos, and archival footage from the Congressional hearings to piece together the events. What you'll see will shock you, this high level of greed is truly astonishing and the cocky living-on-the-edge attitudes of Enron's management was reflected in the way the company did business and how the employees acted. It's not hard to see how easily morals and ethics can be forgotten in an environment such as that. There have also been comments that I've read online about this film's ultimate agenda being a "Democratic propaganda tool" as it sheds negative light on the current Bush presidency and their connection with Enron's CEO Kenneth Lay. It is interesting that Gibney does ignore Enron's past and the dealings they've had at the time of Clinton's presidency, however I certainly don't think this is a propaganda tool. The parts of the film that focus on the Bush presidency and Enron are briefly touched on, if this were indeed a piece of propaganda then a mention of Bush's involvement would have been made at any opportunity, but it wasn't. This film details the who, what, where and when, all the right questions to ask and all of which answered in this well made and interesting documentary.
Video
Presented in the film's original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.78:1 this transfer is presented in high-definition 1080p / 24fps using MPEG-2 compression. Much like the film's standard DVD release this transfer is about 50/50 in terms of the quality. The documentary is made up of various elements that includes interviews, recreations, vintage footage, TV news footage and photographs. These were all shot using different formats. The vintage footage and news footage looks the worst, on standard DVD they were tolerable (but still not great), unscaled here they look even worse. This footage was too low resolution to being with, amping up to 1080p didn't do it any favors. On the other hand, the interview footage and reenactments were all shot on HD, and the result is fairly good, the image is sharp and bright, although I felt it was a little blown out, especially whites. Otherwise it's solid with rich colors and fine detail, black levels had some minor noise. One of the disappointments is that the total package appears quite flat, not what I was expecting from an HD NET produced film. At this stage the standard DVD release beats out this High Definition transfer, which is quite a shame really.
Audio
Two audio tracks are included, an English DTS 5.1 surround as well as an English Dolby Digital 5.1 track. The DTS 5.1 track is a new addition but the Dolby Digital 5.1 is a direct port from the standard DVD release (or at least it sounds like it anyway). For the purposes of this review I chose to view the film with its DTS 5.1 track. Considering this is a documentary you'd think that a DTS track would be a waste, and it almost is. The majority of the sound is front heavy and little is spread out to the surround channels, with the exception of the music. The dialogue is clear and the overall sound quality is excellent it just lacks punch, there is very little by way of immersiveness of this track. I'll let that slide considering its a documentary though... Optional subtitles are also included in English for the hearing impaired and also in Spanish.
Extras
Magnolia have only ported over two of the extras from the excellently produced standard DVD release, the audio commentary and the "Higher Definition" TV Clip. Below is a closer look at these supplements. First up we have the feature-length audio commentary by the film's writer/director Alex Gibney who provides according to him some "random thoughts and background" to the film. He tends to focus quite heavily on the choice of music for the film, and how they relate to what is seen on screen. Gibney also comments on the juxtaposition of the cleanliness of the HD footage versus the archival material, which is supposed to evoke a sense of what is real and what is all part of Enron's "bizarre stage set". Gibney also provides interesting trivia on the key figures talked about in the film as well as the interviewees. You also get a sense of Gibney's motivations in making this film, as he sees it it's not a film about politics (Democrats versus Republicans) it's a story about "what is fundamentally wrong with American society", this is one of the things that interested him in making this film. He also sheds light on the research behind the film, how certain elements where found (such as audio recordings, file photos etc.), as well as how the book was essentially a blue print for the film, and the film took on an identity of its own. Gibney challenges us to question things to always ask why, which is not only a driving force of this film but also the gas that propels this commentary vehicle, so to speak. Going into this track I was a little afraid that I'd be bored for 110 minutes while some guy talks about his documentary, but I was pleasantly surprised. Gibney keeps a steady pace and always finds interesting things to say. It's certainly worth a listen, you may also learn something. A TV clip follows that, entitled "HDnet's Higher Definition: Highlights from the Enron Show" which runs for 12 minutes 9 seconds and is presented in 1080i. This is a TV show on the HDnet channel is hosted by Robert Wilonsky, who basically looks like he can be a stand-in for one time wrestler, sometime actor and once upon a time Governor of Minnesota Jesse "The Body" Ventura. Here Wilonsky interview both McLean and Elkin about various aspects of the film and makes for interesting viewing.
Overall
As far as a High Definition Blu-ray release goes this effort from Magnolia is somewhat of a disappointment, the transfer didn't quite hit the mark (although some of the problems had to do with the archive footage and the source material not being up to snuff to upscale in the first place), but the kick in the pants is the lack of extras, considering the standard DVD is rich with supplements I find it hard to recommend paying more for this Blu-ray disc that doesn't entirely deliver.
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