Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (2010)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

I am going to be your escort to my review of the documentary "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer". OK, maybe wrong choice of words, and I probably won't rise to the documentary movie review occasion; please don't say "you called it". Anyways, Alex Gibney's documentary is a provoking look at the former New York Governor whose scandal of being a preferred customer of "The Emperors Club" escort service cost him an uprising political career that could have landed him a future presidential seat in the White House as this country's first Jewish President. This documentary could have been easily called "The Last Emperor" but I am sure Oscar-winning Director Bernardo Bertolucci would have taken issue. "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer" shows many facets of the scandal and its underlying pants, I mean parts, that sure do not defend Spitzer's whorish actions but do reveal that he was a marked man by several Republican political enemies. Gibney excels in revealing Spitzer's shining political moments in bringing down Wall Street corruption geezers. However, he does not glamorize Spitzer at all; even the former Governor speaks and presents himself in the documentary with a remorseful demeanor by not externalizing his downfall on others. The documentary does showcase that other elected officials have been in similar scandals and are still in their political seat, and Spitzer is not. Gibney also reveals the fact that the "15 minutes of fame" Spitzer Emperess gal was not so much Ashley Dupre (he only traveled Ashley's waters one night at the Mayflower Hotel), but it was another Emperor escort named Angelina who was requested by Spitzer several times. Angelina does not appear in the documentary but does reveal info to Gibney; an actress was used in representing to reveal what Angelina had to say about their Elliot & Angelina jolly close encounters of the $10,000 a night kind. The most colorful character of this documentary is not Spitzer, not the call girls, not the Wall Street geezers; but it was a political consultant named Roger Stone who was hired by one of Spitzer's main enemies to help bring Eliot down. The flamboyant Stone is not a bit stone-faced in boldly revealing his swinger lifestyle and his large tattoo of Richard Nixon. Alex Gibney is an Oscar-winning documentarian, and he continues to prove his worth by fully revealing issues and subjects as he does in this engaging documentary. Spitzer did have sexual relations with "that woman, and that other woman, and that other woman", but at least Spitzer spits out his regrets with earnest humility in this insightful documentary. So yes, call it in and book it as a must-see documentary. **** Good

As it's become so common with most political figures it's one scandal after another. You name it bribes, payoffs, abuse of power and corruption. But most of all the sex scandal is what the public loves. As in this case the sex scandal brought down a hard working and likable politician New York governor Eliot Spizer. Director Alex Gibney paints the film as two sides as the interviews revealing from staff members, political rivals, and even Spitzer himself prove he had affairs with hookers that being New York's elite escorts and call girls.Aside from that it begins with Eliot's days as attorney general in the Empire state when he took on the big boys of wall street and dirty investment companies who were defrauding millions. Eliot was the new political golden boy who seemed to do right and fight for the common man! This would later propel him to be elected New York governor only along the way he made many business world and political grudges in the New York statehouse which would later bite him as investigations were launched.Spitzer like all political pricks in my opinion felt he was above the law and as is so common gives into the oldest vice around sex with a hooker. Really no big deal yet Eliot showed he was a hypocrite as he once prosecuted the big time New York city call girl rings now he's a John! Still it's not the worst thing as Spitzer will still be remembered for some good by taking on the corrupt companies of wall street.Gibney's doc is refreshing, informative, and revealing it shows the political and business world is so intersected with scandals of sex and greed with political pricks from both sides. Still Spitzer will be remembered yet his story is a tragic and Gothic one a real rise and fall of a good leader. As the vices of sex, money, and power abuse will always dominate society especially the political world it's just too bad that a hard working politician like Eliot Spitzer got to be the showcase for a dramatic fall. Clearly this is one social and political doc that's not to be missed.

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?)

I don't go to any movie as a first attempt to "learn" about "current events" or history. I make it an ongoing point to learn about the evolution of facts on any topic that interests me through multiple sources, all of which I try to double-check and cross-reference, until my doubts about veracity are reasonably satisfied. That can still leave matters unresolved, especially when compelling evidence is stacked up on the sides of both thesis and antithesis.When I see "documentaries," it's part of challenging my current take on which way I believe the weight of truths and contradictions are tipping. The interpretative and editorial spin of any given documentary becomes a strength, and not a weakness, in this context. Many times, I come away with my own understanding of things further honed. Sometimes, I find myself completely reversed.I thought long and hard before I went to see C9. I've much respect for Alex Gibney's previous work; but I wondered whether or not seeing C9 could further inform and/or change anything I knew and opined about Spitzer.I was, and still am, deeply disappointed over the personal failings of the disgraced former Governor. I know that White Collar crime exists and that the pervasiveness of it, especially today, is not strictly a matter of a handful of Machiavellian masterminds. Broken assumptions, broken systems and failures of regulation (on many levels) are also necessary for the few to be able to relentlessly plunder the many. It is a cancer that must be fought.Eliot Spitzer's fall from grace was unforgivable, in my mind, not just because of the damage he wreaked upon himself and his family, but because of the huge setbacks that we have all suffered in the "war" against White Collar crime in the US. Spitzer was the hard-and-fast hitting Sheriff of Wall Street and a Crusader for Main Street. He never took a bribe, but he still managed to find a spectacular way to violate the public's trust while in office. Spitzer took one huge measure of personal responsibility by resigning from office; but he also created a huge political vacuum for the sorely needed fight against ongoing crimes in high places. I also knew that outrage toward Spitzer was the largest part of what I felt, going in, and that outrage creates its own blindspots.So, I stood under an umbrella, in light rain, for an hour, to see this film and I am very glad that I did. The facts presented in C9 pertaining to Spitzer's record of public service were well presented and jibed with what I already knew. But there is still special value in actually seeing the major adversarial players as they tell their own stories.Gibney pulls off a number of compelling interviews, not just with Spitzer (who was interviewed on four different occasions), but also with some former aides. Spitzer is allowed to evade specifically answering certain questions (including campaign finances), but the expression on his face and in his eyes, in those same moments, still spoke volumes to me.There's also a rogues gallery of the powerful enemies, in finance and in government (state and Federal), that Spitzer made over the course of his career in office. Several of these players get as much individual talk time as Spitzer.The middle part of the film is a whodunit-style look at how the sexual scandal came into fruition. Here's where the tag line, "You don't know the real story," comes into play. The net effect of this is to desensationalize just about everything that print and television "news" got (mostly) wrong, which is no small order.The infamous Ashley Dupree never participates in an interview for Gibney, although she still manages to get some screen/blab time in. It turns out that she very likely only had a one night stand with Spitzer.The ongoing liaison that Spitzer came to seek out through the Emperors' Club was with an entirely different "escort." While "Angelina" does not consent to be filmed (she's now a day trader and no longer in her former line of work), Angelina does agree to be interviewed. Gibney uses an actress to read/interpret Ashley's portion of the transcript. (The only thing that I disagree with about the execution of this is that Gibney does not make it clear, from the onset, that it's an actress standing in for Ashley on camera.) C9 created a new context for me, in which to re-think much of what I already knew.Spitzer is by no means let off-the-hook for literally screwing around, but the media creation is brought several notches down from shining knight and a few notches up from pariah.I was once again reminded of all of the good that Eliot Spitzer and his assembled associates managed to accomplish while in office. Some of the strategic and tactical mistakes were made clearer, too.Important questions are raised about the scandal, itself. How did the FBI come to investigate the Emperor's Club? How did a prostitution and money laundering investigation come to focus on the Mann Act and the interstate transport of women (who were of majority age and not by any stretch of the imagination "white slaves") to provide prostitution services? Who were the other clients of the Emperors' Club? Why were there so many investigative leaks to the press pointing specifically in the direction of Spitzer? Why not anyone else? As a result of seeing C9, my own view of Spitzer has become better tempered and from that improved vantage point useful new questions arise.If we set aside the sex scandal, can we say that Spitzer's official conduct in office, as AG and governor, was ends-and-means right or wrong? A handful of BadGuys(TM) were brought down, but there are many more undaunted. Has anyone else picked up Spitzer's mantle? Where are his replacements?