L'Évadé: L'étrange affaire Carlos Ghosn

When I was in business school, the man was a legend.

This documentary portrays a man being credited for making Renault and Nissan literal dozens of billions, in cash. We're talking financial results here, not equity market valuation.

Then we see how power corrupts the man. When going back to France to head Renault, lying about giving up the reins of Nissan, and holding on to them instead. How he lived on a plane between the two HQs. How he surrounded himself with yes men. How his hair grew, his glasses disappeared, his Sarkozy style shoes made him taller, his suits got nicer, his wife got dumped, his own image PR went on overdrive, how he lost touch with his mission, his people, and reality. The unnecessarily long segment on the galerie des glaces in Versailles was so absurd, it's hard to feel sorry for the guy.

If you've read a biography of a dictator, you've read them all. Humans aren't wired to have that much power. There's a fair amount of Putin in his image propaganda, a lot of Stalin in his entourage of yes men.

As pretty much always, follow the money. He made the companies billions in cash in the bank. Because France and because Japan, his compensation remained hidden for many years. Then people had a wtf moment when they found out, to which ghosn replied "ford CEO makes 4x". So using a complex and hidden structure of companies, he bought real estate in holiday destinations, and embezzled funds. If Renault entities buy jewelry and houses in Rio I'd bet my money on embezzlement.

The Japanese are portrayed as joyful idiots until one morning the whole system conspires to throw him in jail without due process. Apparently the absence of due process in Japan is called due process.

I wish there had been more quantitative and analytical work done. Pie charts, graphs. Cash created over his tenure, cash he got, cash he allegedly embezzled. Because ultimately this documentary is story telling, often times in a strange format, with lots of valuable interviews, but virtually no analysis or research.

This is about greed, I wish it had been quantified more.

It is an extraordinary story. A CEO who has been arrested and charged but not yet convicted of embezzlement, smuggles himself out of Japan, via a corporate jet, by hiding in a big box. Its stuff out of a novel.

It is a well-made documentary but given most documentaries made today are pretty good anyway, to be exceptional it needs to give the viewer as many facts and let them decide on the conclusions. The problem with this film is that I found it wanting in facts.

We are told the rot set in when Ghosn was informed of 3 employees at Renault who leaked trade secrets on electric cars to the Chinese. So, Ghosn sacked them. Only then it was divulged the 3 employees were innocent and the whole thing was made up. People were questioning Ghosn's integrity. The way I saw it - who was the dude who made up the lies? Why was not the investigation about the source of the lie? Was Ghosn part of the conspiracy? Where was the evidence to support this if that was the case? The documentary had fewer answers than we needed. It was all up in the air with all the wrong question asked.

Ghosn than got in hot water because of his high salary (and a very lavish party he threw), but again, did he break the law? It may not be ethical but what he was doing was not illegal. So jealously plays a large part in his downfall. Ofcourse, the people seeing green could not get over the fact they were still in a job because of Ghosn, not inspite of him. This was the man who turned around a huge loss-making company into a profitable one. The fact he did it twice, for Renault and Nissan, says a lot about Ghosn business prowess and intelligence. Then again, given we are talking about the French and Japanese psyche, that could go in some way to explain why he was hated. Being of Arab origin, he just wasn't one of "us". To its credit the documentary address this.

The biggest issue I had was the lack of evidence presented about Ghosn's presumed embezzlement or possible tax avoidance. No facts were supplied. We were just told the Renault business set up numerous subsidiary companies, but we are also told other car manufactures do the same, so I am not sure why this was a big deal then? It was through these subsidiaries that Ghosn accumulated wealth, but no details were supplied on how the alleged embezzlement operated, how much was siphoned and who else was implicated?

I came away knowing less about Ghosn's charges than I did going into it. The documentary slants on the side of presumed innocence which given the absolute lack of evidence against the man, is the only position to take.

The only fact I came away with is the 99% conviction rate of people arrested in Japan and that goes to explain why Ghosn fled.

The documentary did a great job at showing Ghosn's background and rise to fame but did nothing to clarify the situation that got him locked up in the first place.. watch the apple mini series "Wanted: The Escape of Carlos Ghosn" that one is much better, it has some people from this documentaty like his japanese lawyer and the bald british one, the global general counsel, but better yet, it has Ghosn himself..

Watch it, there was a conspiracy to frame Carlos to prevent him from merging Nissan to Renault. It has much more information on it with evidence to back it up.

4 episodes of 40min each but very easy to watch.

This is the oddest fugitive story that's deserved a documentary I've ever watched. Not a total waste of time, but certainly not the best time spent.

Most of it was about Renault and Nissan. Better to say, Renault and Japan.

There was literally 2 lines, maybe three, about his family (wife or wives and children) - and how they were affected. We don't know how he's been since he became a fugitive.

It was 95% of what he did before the kerfuffle and then BOOM! He was a fugitive. The End.

I won't remember him or his story for ever long which is too bad. It could be an excellent example of the problems on so many levels of so many things!!

Would I watch it again knowing what I know now?

Probably not. Except he really does look like Mr. Bean and that part was fun. (I know that you might not think that is nice, but Mr. Bean is well-loved my millions, soooo.)

Good Documentary, it shows that the power ruins you. He definitely had talent, but as its said. Its easy to get the status but hardest to maintain it. He did many mistakes which were ethically incorrect, but there was no major reason to jail him. I had quite high thoughts of Japan and its judicial system but now I am skeptical.

Good Documentary, it shows that the power ruins you. He definitely had talent, but as its said. Its easy to get the status but hardest to maintain it. He did many mistakes which were ethically incorrect, but there was no major reason to jail him. I had quite high thoughts of Japan and its judicial system but now I am skeptical.