ANTHONY Weiner served for 12 years as a congressman. In 2010, when current co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign Huma Abedin got pregnant, he married her. You could call that a politically savvy relationship.

In 2011 he resigned from Congress after having been caught out sexting, a relatively innocuous action for which he apologised. In 2013, he decided to run for one of America’s most influential public offices – Mayor of New York. During the campaign, a lush-bodied political groupie, whom he had never met, revealed he had sent her selfies of his penis!

Documentary makers Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg had generous, uncensored access to Weiner, his family, campaign staff, media organisations and personalities and political friends and opponents from which to distil 96 minutes of dissected ambition. Politics American style is a grubby, vicious, no-holds-barred conflict as ambition meets public perceptions. American media take an active role in covering it, influencing attitudes and making assumptions and judgements about not only issues but also candidates’ personal behaviour.

The film covers a broad field. Events dictated where, how, when and why material got included. The resulting film says much that will perhaps resonate especially in the Canberra community.

Is Anthony Weiner a good guy? Would you vote for him? He got only 4.2 per cent of the vote. But he and Huma are still together. And he’s thinking about running again. Is the film about him worth seeing? Well, it’s the third of its kind. He sure understands the value of the movies as an election tool, even if in this one he shoots himself in the foot.

At Dendy