Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer 2010

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: The good stuff, as far as Mr. Gibney's movie and Mr. Elkind's book theorize, involves the power brokers who...might have had something to do with his downfall. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: You want tears? You want convulsive sobs, weepy remorse, pleadings for forgiveness? Well, look elsewhere, because Eliot Spitzer isn't going to give them to you. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: The more substantial material, including Spitzer's feuds with vindictive New York politician Joe Bruno and financier Ken Langone, gets short shrift. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: It's probably easier for an ex-prosecutor known for macho threats to say he got caught screwing than for him to say he got screwed. But folks, he was reamed. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Say what you will about Eliot Spitzer, he's a marvelous subject for a documentary, and Alex Gibney has made a film worthy of him... Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: "Client 9" is made with skill and intelligence, but I kept wanting to hear another story; one that I hadn't heard before. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: The film rescues the story from tabloid hell, and asks for a saner assessment of a deeply flawed man. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: It takes Gibney almost two hours to build his own argument regarding the airing of Spitzer's laundry, and, having watched it twice, that length is inexplicable. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: As Gibney demonstrates in Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, plenty of politicians remained in office amid similar revelations. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Deepens the saga of New York's former governor and attorney general into the paradoxical morality play it really was. Read more

Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter: An utterly fascinating look at many things you didn't know about the Eliot Spitzer scandal. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: A sad, disturbing and in some ways tragic tale that in its lurid combination of sex and politics, banal hypocrisy and bare-knuckles power, seems very much an American story of our times. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: It uncovers truths while framing events as a gripping whodunit. Gibney puts mystery back into a story we thought we knew. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: I wonder how Gibney operated the camera while on his back. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Client 9 works like a good detective novel: Colorful and seemingly disparate characters are introduced, and then the strands that tie them together are revealed in a rich, sordid, thrilling tableau. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The portrait of Spitzer that emerges throughout Client 9 is of a straight-talking, no-nonsense individual whose non-political way of getting things done crafted a lot of enemies. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: As irresistible as the Ashley and Angelina material may be, that stuff is really the icing on Gibney's cake, which is an elegantly told New York fable about a smart, arrogant guy who made a whole lot of the wrong kinds of enemies. Read more

James Bradshaw, Globe and Mail: This is a smart, well-built documentary that does greatly deepen the account of Spitzer's fall from grace, as advertised. Read more

Kate Taylor, Globe and Mail: Gibney doesn't have anything more than tantalizing clues and a huge amount of circumstantial evidence, but he doesn't need much more than that to indict Wall Street itself. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: It's the coolness of Gibney's account of the possibly systematic sabotaging of Spitzer's career, perpetrated by a strangely camera-friendly cast of enemies-cum-conspirators, that makes it such transfixing viewing. Read more

John Anderson, Variety: For all the information here, Gibney is unusual among investigative documentarians in that he never forgets he's making cinema. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: Gibney's assiduous presentation of a payback plot against Spitzer is matched by his diligent investigation into the workings of the Emperors Club VIP. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: It leaves the unmistakable impression that there's more to this iteration of a story that, animated by hubris, lust, self-deception and love of power, is sure to play out again. Read more