'Client 9' documentary: Eliot Spitzer's rise and fall, and a credible hit-job theory

'I did what I did. And shame on me."

That's Eliot Spitzer, former governor of New York, fessing up to Alex Gibney in the closing minutes of the filmmaker's riveting Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. Gibney, who won an Oscar for Taxi to the Dark Side, suggests that Spitzer's downfall might have been facilitated by enemies he'd made busting chops on Wall Street and in Albany.

Forced to resign from his governorship when it was revealed that he had been frequenting an escort service, Spitzer says the right thing: He did it, and shame.

But Gibney, in this fascinating documentary about sex and ambition, power and hubris, makes the case that despite Spitzer's epically reckless hotel trysts with $1,000-an-hour call girls, he may well have been the target of a political hit. Just look at the loathing in Kenneth Langone's eyes when the Home Depot billionaire is asked about Spitzer; listen to the threatening phone message to Spitzer's father, alleged to have been made by rogue Republican lobbyist Roger Stone; take in the grin on Joseph Bruno's mug when the former majority leader of the New York Senate - Spitzer's pugilistic rival in the legislature - recalls reading those "Luv Guv" headlines.

The telling tragedy of a powerful man undone by his own libido ("the only metaphor I can think of is Icarus," says Spitzer), and a more-than-credible conspiracy theory involving forces in Wall Street and Washington, 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.

What does that tattooed street artist with the massive biceps have to do with Spitzer, the so-called Sheriff of Wall Street who, as New York's attorney general and then governor, led a hard-charging crusade against white-collar crime?

Can that giggly young woman who ran the platinum-priced Emperors Club be much older than the disgraced politician's own daughters?

The George W. Bush-era controversy about the firing of U.S. attorneys and partisan politics in the Justice Department? How could that relate to Spitzer's implosion?

The collapse and bailout of AIG, and the financial crisis of 2008? Could Spitzer have done anything about that?