When in doubt, politicians shouldn’t tweet pictures of their body or text women other than their spouse. New York congressman Anthony Weiner is a living testament to that and the focus of Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg’s documentary, “Weiner”, about his ill-fated 2013 New York mayoral run.

Documentaries are at their best when they present a topic you know little to nothing about and suddenly make that topic explode in front of your eyes. By the end of the movie, you are craving more material and needing to know more about the subject. Before I turned on “Weiner”, I knew little about this man. By the end, I couldn’t wait to hear more or see where he was at. This is a riveting and brutally honest look at a smart man undone by painfully poor decision making. I’m not sure anyone beats Weiner in the smartest dumb politician race.

When we first see Weiner, he is standing up for 9/11 rescue workers in the Barack Obama health care bill that wished to stop paying those heroic men and women. Weiner is a fast talking New Yorker who stormed into politics with a vengeance only to set his own career on fire. Remember the five minutes he got in front of Congress and basically lit a Will McAvoy like forest fire in that room by calling out Republicans for turning their back on the real heroes. He was riding high until he had to step down after a picture tweeted out of his account of his crotch burned everything he built to the ground. The worst thing about it was he lied at first and then admitted later. (more…)