Documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney achieves the extraordinary feat of making accounts look exciting in Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room. He tells the inside story of America's biggest corporate scandal with "clarity and verve", earning an Oscar nomination for his trouble. Although it wasn't destined to set the box office alight, the positive buzz certainly fattened the profit margin.

Cooking The Books

Writer Bethany McLean (who sparked the Senate investigation into Enron with a magazine article) is one of the speakers in an engaging 'Making Of' featurette. She also co-wrote the book on which the documentary is based and, as Gibney explains, helped to give an angle on a story beyond the official record of facts and figures. Of course the real intrigue is in exposing the individuals and what Gibney calls the "combative, predatory culture" fostered in a big corporate environment. He talks too about the portrayed suicide of beleaguered exec Cliff Baxter that proved to be a bone of contention in the cutting room as well as his approach to the visuals.

A reel of deleted scenes running at just under 20 minutes fills in a few gaps with more interviews and excerpts of conversations between sleazy stock traders. The footage also contains more incendiary testimony about Enron's manipulation of the California energy crisis. Most astonishing of all is a claim that former chairman Ken Lay actually threatened the then governor of California with power outages and indeed a series of blackouts followed at a time of "historically low usage".

Called To Testify

In a thoughtful commentary for the film, Gibney asserts that Enron also conducted shady dealings abroad, but budget and constraints of running time meant he couldn't look into that too deeply. Elsewhere he states that he could have made more of President George W Bush's relationship with Ken Lay, but that there is little evidence to show that their relationship is as close as the friendship Lay shares with Bush Snr. The director is fair but forthright in his personal assessment of the characters involved. He says that former CEO Jeffrey Skilling is "still convinced of his own rectitude" and even expresses "respect" for his readiness to take on the Senate during their investigation.

Aside from offering his opinions on the scandal that unfolds, Gibney talks about the metaphor of Titanic that came into play when he visited the trading floor with its sweeping staircases and general air of indestructibility. Meanwhile the many reflective surfaces were a hint at the duality of Enron's business.

The added testimony in the deleted scenes and Gibney's willingness to express his private take on the matter add up to a tidy bonus package that nicely complements the documentary.

EXTRA FEATURES

Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room is released on DVD on Monday 11th September.