Phil Spector

Mirren and Pacino are fantastic, and Tambor rightfully underplays the larger-than-life Cutler, who rivals Spector himself.

It is surely is Mamet’s strongest drama in ages, and a seductive, devious essay on the tortured celebrity soul.

To watch Mr. Pacino's Spector pull himself back from the edge to shout, bitterly, that of course he knows this is only a rehearsal--he'll go on, awkwardly, to assure the shaken defense team that they've done well--is to feel the full force of the intelligence behind this drama.

Mamet and his actors have created a fascinating character study that puts our notions of prejudice, celebrity, media and justice in the spotlight.

From Spector's verbal bluster, to all the chatter about ballistics and forensics, it's a very talkie 90 minutes, occasionally punctuated by a haunting soundtrack. But the high-caliber performers, as well as Mamet's sparkling dialogue, keep things compelling.

In the end, Phil Spector succeeds on the strength of its two marquee thespians. Mirren is wonderful throughout, Pacino scores in double figures and they have enough scenes together to make it all well worth your while.

The film costars an on-form Helen Mirren as Linda Kenney Baden, one of Spector's real-life defense attorneys.... Pacino too is excellent. [22 Mar 2013, p.58]

In the end, the movie transcends the legal chess match, defining itself instead by the sheer wattage of Spector’s personality and his high-level sparring with a woman whose brains match his own, minus the madness.

Fans of legal dramas should be intrigued by Phil Spector, a well-paced 90-minute character-driven film.

Even though the movie is loaded with enough to satisfy those who believe Spector did it, as Mirren’s role is written and Pacino’s performance hints at, the film seems eager to suggest Spector was found guilty mostly of being a freak. That have-it-both-ways storytelling doesn’t make Phil Spector a great legal movie, but it allows two exceptional actors and a talented writer a chance to play with reality.

Mamet is known for tight, pointed dramas, and he holds true to his rep here, creating a mystery, procedural and character study all in one.

Pacino and Mirren’s teamwork keeps Phil Spector watchable even when it’s dousing itself in dramatic ethanol and lighting a match.

This is essentially a dialogue between baffled attorney and baffling client, which makes for an arid 95 minutes. [1 Apr 2013]

If you are willing and able to take it on its own fictional terms, it does work as a well-acted legal drama, though even on that level, you're better off watching The Good Wife.

Phil Spector is just about ideal as an HBO movie; watchable and gossip-worthy but just not that compelling.

Despite the more honest pleasures of something like You Don't Know Jack, Phil Spector's nominal entertainment value proceeds almost entirely from its status as an explosive camp object, buoyed by the promise of seeing Pacino yell his way through Mamet's dialogue as the eccentric record producer turned convicted murderer in an overstated wall of sound.

A frustrating film that leaves the questions--pretty much all of them--unanswered.

Both actors [Al Pacino and Helen Mirren] could thrive with this story (Pacino's a ringer for Spector) but Mamet speculates a bit too much. Had he eliminated the title character entirely, it might have been more intriguing.

Phil Spector is missing dramatic tension. It’s staged as a movie but it’s constructed more like a play, with plenty of scenes of two people exchanging Mametian dialogue in claustrophobic spaces.

While it's never as silly or artless as HBO's overpraised "Game Change," Spector is low-stakes, procedure-oriented and deliberately claustrophobic, lacking in the sort of sharply pointed dialogue one may expect from Mamet

Claustrophobic, stagey and muddled, the movie offers two memorable set pieces.

Phil Spector is watchable, but given the lofty expectations raised by HBO movies, it’s also the cinematic equivalent of a bad hair day.

Phil Spector is a wordy and unappealingly clinical character sketch.

As good as the performances are and as fascinating it might be to see the inner workings of a celebrity trial where money was apparently no object, Phil Spector plays like a docudrama.

Everything aside from Pacino in this movie is surprisingly ordinary and lacking.

In Phil Spector the facts of the case and the characters are molded to allow viewers to doubt Mr. Spector’s guilt. But even with a Mamet screenplay and actors like Mr. Pacino and Ms. Mirren there is not much anyone can do to make the audience care.

Mamet has supplied Phil Spector with his signature rapid-fire dialogue, but nameless attorneys and consultants interrupting one another only set the table for more tiresome time with Pacino.

Phil Spector--potentially a camp classic about self-aggrandizement and megalomania--is simply a self-satisfied vanity project.