ldquinn An interesting take on a potential "other side" to the well known story of the NY Governor and the call girl.With one exception (a stand in for a hooker), all the people are real and the film is unscripted. It's a very good portrayal of NY politics. Most of the people are certainly putting a bit of their own spin on what they say (it is politics, after all); but, some, like Joe Bruno, tell it like it is with no punches pulled.I am originally from upstate NY and can tell you that the Albany political scene is much the same as it is portrayed in the film. Lots of politicians, mostly followers; but, there are a few leaders who shake up the ship as Joe Bruno does in the film.Well worth seeing, especially if you're a political junkie.

paul2001sw-1 The story of Eliot Spitzer is certainly interesting: an abrasive man who fought the demigods of Wall Street; a moral crusader brought down by his own lusts. The tale also provides insights into high-class prostitution and raises the idea that a conspiracy existed against a man who made a career of making enemies. But the problem with this documentary is that is doesn't ask hard enough questions. Spitzer is allowed to brush off charges of his own monstrous behaviour; his enemies likewise side-step the charges of conspiracy; while the call-girls are allowed to simper their way through the program unchallenged. And some stories are silly - Spitzer implies his father was ruthless because he beat his son at 'Monopoly'! One is tempted to feel that all of them deserve each other; but the ordinary people of New York lost a highly flawed champion when Spitzer fell - you may not like him, but the financial services industry suffers little authority gladly, and arguably we are all now living with the consequences.

jdesando "Pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes." John Ruskin.Rarely outside of Morgan Spurlock or Michael Moore have I enjoyed a documentary as much as I have Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. Filled with sex and power, it presents the gamut of intrigues worthy of tragedy or soap opera--never dull, almost always entertaining. Cheesy and improbable, it is the story of the New York State attorney general who rose in the early years of the first decade to become governor and after a year to resign because he was caught using a call-girl service.Having sex with a prostitute is hardly worthy of Sophocles' plays, but it is richly ironic when the governor prosecuted the very services he used.Writer/director Alex Gibney has fashioned this doc as a low-key support for the theory that Eliot Spitzer's enemies helped bring him down. To Spitzer's credit, he attributes his fall to himself with a hubris befitting Greek tragedy. Gibney's interview of Spitzer is first-rate journalism with a willing subject and reasonable questions.Irony abounds: Gibney does an admirable job showing how Spitzer could have been the first Jewish president—he's that gifted as a hard-charging, ethical avatar until Gibney explores his fatal decision to cheat on one of the loveliest political wives this side of Elizabeth Edwards. As always, unanswered questions remain about the marital circumstances that could drive him to pay for attractive hookers. However, the off-center idea of the FBI probing into Spitzer's private life is absurd anyway when terrorists and corrupt bankers are bringing the world down.Until the overly-long disquisition on the call-girl industry and lurid shots of the young women, the treatment of Spitzer's "war" with Wall Street and giants like AIG is the stuff of thriller fiction, except it's real. In that part of the doc, Gibney is historically spot on about the beginnings of the Great Recession. Irony again reigns when the very knight to fight these corrupt forces is neutered by the most common failing of all mortals—hubris.

Matthew Stechel Film manages to maintain interest without seeming overtly like a propaganda piece which is what i honestly thought it would be going in. *honestly why else would the ex governor have even participated if it wasn't for the opportunity to rehabilitate his image went my logic--an idea i'm sure many other people have thought when wondering if they should bother checking this one out. I can't really say whether you should check it out or not---it will help if you have a tolerance for smirking, and self justification (and yet somehow Spitzer doesn't indulge in the latter--remaining completely on point that he had no one to blame but himself for his own actions...what can i say? i was hoping for someone who sees conspiracy theories everywhere.) Can't help but wonder how this is going to hold up in the coming decade or two. Will it hold together as a film? will it hold as a narrative that years from now people whom have never heard of Spitzer will be able to watch this and have interest in it?, sadly i think it probably will to a certain extent---not so much because of Spitzer's fall from grace (that will inevitably repeat itself in another high ranking politician and this will if anything just seem like business as usual.) but because of the various people--wall streeters, and gov. officials interviewed throughout who take delight in seeing Spitzer smeared. Its all kinds of creepy to see these guys and gals taking such glee in being interviewed about Spitzer as well as defending themselves from Spitzer's previous accusations against them when he was a crusading governor/state attorney---you kind of start to wonder what kind of documentary these guys thought they were being interviewed for exactly.I mean in what capacity did these guys rationalize themselves into being interviewed for this doc? Was it this same rationality that led to Spitzer thinking he could continue seeing these prostitutes indefinitely without any ramifications? Why do such high ranking guys of both the governmental kind and the wall street kind think they can rationalize every action they take away as if they had a perfectly logical reason for doing what they do?) If anything can be taken away from this documentary, its not that you should be careful how you conduct yourself, its not that you should be careful whose feathers you ruffle (in the metaphorical sense of course), its not even that you shouldn't have sex with prostitutes if you're a government official (you especially shouldn't have sex with prostitutes who recognize you from the news)---its that very successful high ranking people of all professions can sell themselves on anything, especially when they really shouldn't. Throughout the film the director keeps coming back to an interview with the giggling young woman who ran the prostitution ring in the first place...and she still so obviously thinks that she did nothing wrong running such a business and making a lot of money doing so. Perhaps that's even why these people are so successful in the first place. That they're such good salesmen, that they can even fool themselves into thinking they can do anything and get away with anything because they'll always be able to rationalize it away. That they're such good salesmen that even after getting caught, they can still feel like they didn't do anything wrong at all. Overconfidence kills. (also a potential question---why are all the super successful people in this movie all seem to be sociopaths as well? and what is that supposed to mean?)