I love this movie so much

Wonderful Movie

Too much of everything

Don't Believe the Hype

Nice TV movie about the trial of record producer Phil Spector.Al Pacino as Spector, Helen Mirren as the lawyer who represents him.Good writing/directing by David Mamet, good acting. Nothing amazing, but it's a good court drama that kept me interested throughout the movie.As the remark in the beginning of the movie says, it's fictionalized, and I treated the movie like that - some of the situations were obviously fictionalized (such as the trial rehearsal and the entire lawyers office, which seems more like a police station). I don't know how accurate the details presented in the movie are, but if it's half right then it raises some serious questions about the case.

Legendary record producer Phil Spector (Al Pacino) is accused of murdering Lana Clarkson. He insists that she killed herself. His defense attorney Bruce Cutler (Jeffrey Tambor) hires consultant Linda Kenney Baden (Helen Mirren) to help. The evidence is circumstantial but the most damning is probably Spector himself.With David Mamet, Al Pacino, and Helen Mirren, I had greater hopes. Sure it's just a TV movie but HBO likes to think of themselves as more than TV. It's mostly about the behind the scenes of the defense during the trial as they cobble the evidence together. Without both sides, the movie feels like it's missing something. Pacino is throwing a lot into his performance. Mirren is solid. The most interesting part for me is the opening text of NOT based on a true story. After that, some of the inside baseball looked interesting. The case isn't that complicated. I come away with the feeling that this is only the most superficial of a look inside of Spector's mind.

David Mamet's HBO film Phil Spector is less about the famous Wall of Sound producer than about Mamet himself, the screenwriter and director.The film as Mamet's meditation on a few themes beyond Spector's case.The primary theme is Mamet's familiar reaction against liberal right-think. He demonstrates the liberal's reflexive assumption that the woman must be the innocent victim, the powerful man must be the killer, especially if the woman is poor and the man is rich. Against this kneejerk and righteous bias any scientific evidence has no effect. With Talmudic rigour Mamet calls the rich to be accorded the same justice as the poor. So must the freakish. Here Mamet's Spector joins the long line of respectable crazies he cites, from Lenny Bruce to Jimi Hendrix to the pre-Yoko bald hermit John Lennon as free spirited eccentrics to whom justice must be paid.Finally, the film coheres with Mamet's controversial recent defense of the present gun "regulation" in America. Mamet discourages the assumption that a man who owns guns in necessarily responsible for any fatal mishaps they may cause. It also defends the apparently unbalanced -- in this case the creative -- against prejudgment. Don't go to this film for any truth about Spector and his failed date and the trial. True to the dynamic of fiction, Mamet's subject is about the larger interplay of elements of which the Spector history may or may not be one instance. His subject is the prejudice by which even -- or rather, particularly -- the righteous can blind themselves to any alternative reality and preclude justice. For more see www.yacowar.blogspot.com.

I just read through the reviews (9 as of this writing) and I find reactions interesting yet predictable. Yes, we can talk about performances- Pacino is "masterful"! Mirren is "pure class"! Yes, we can talk about Mamet's writing style. I guess that, for me, these are reviews seemingly by film students and not people who paid attention to not the technical details but what the movie is about.It is, in my mind, less about Phil Spector, and more about the legal system, about understanding society's inclination toward prejudging, presuming guilt, casting the first stone, and it's inability to distinguish between an eccentric and a psychotic. As for the performances, did we suddenly expect poor acting from the talent of this cast? They're good actors and they delivered as expected. I don't think the reviews are helpful when they focus on such trivialities.Anyway, I thought it was interesting, reflective... but not a "masterpiece". Absolutely recommended- I'd say 7 stars.