'Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer'

After watching the documentary "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer," it's easy to see why New York's former governor once called himself a steamroller. It's not just that he crushes people. He smooths them into pavement, the better for walking over to his next destination.

That seems to have happened to filmmaker Alex Gibney, who in late 2009 convinced the former New York governor to sit for a series of interviews and talk about the prostitution-ring scandal that ended his career (or so we thought). "Client 9," named after the code-word federal investigators used for Spitzer, wants to reveal the truth behind one of the most spectacular falls from grace in modern American politics.

Spitzer proves too skilled an interviewee for that. He's protective without seeming defensive, on-message but never self-promoting. He takes responsibility for his actions ("I did what I did, and shame on me") but won't open his psyche for an audit. The closest he comes is when he explains that his favorite escort agency, the Emperor's Club, "was not an addiction. It was a desire. I needed an outlet." Even Spitzer's regular girl (played by an actress to protect her identity) declines to go into details, though she does deny reports that he kept his socks on.

Gibney eventually concludes that the former state Attorney General was a Wall Street reformer who foresaw today's economic crisis but was brought down by rich and powerful enemies - an interpretation that would surely please Spitzer. By the movie's end, the steamroller appears to be moving steadily and inexorably back into public office.