Pacino is excellent, savouring Mamet's script and disappearing into this figure who has a God-complex and is, at the same time, a god in the music industry.

| Jun 11, 2020

Mamet's film isn't sure what the hell to make of Spector. But, strangely, that's part of what makes it so compelling.

| Jun 21, 2016

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.

| May 22, 2013

It's better than most films of its kind, even as it remains unsatisfying as historical re-creation, philosophical meditation or pure drama.

| May 22, 2013

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

| May 22, 2013

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

| Original Score: C- | May 22, 2013

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

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 22, 2013

Mamet will succeed in planting doubt (reasonable or not) in viewers' minds in this account of the murder trial of the larger-than-life Spector, brilliantly embodied by Pacino.

| May 22, 2013

Both actors are great and Mamet's gift with dialogue remains intact but the plotting and choice of storytelling in Phil Spector makes for a final product that doesn't make enough of a statement or tell us much about its title subject.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 22, 2013

Phil Spector is missing dramatic tension.

| May 22, 2013

Mamet treats Spector with morbid fascination more than empathy, like a majestic but strange butterfly he can put behind glass and display but never truly understand.

| Original Score: B | May 22, 2013

I'm wondering if it is possible to do something analogous to a citizen's arrest and file a credit dispute on behalf of the viewing public. Nobody produced this film.

| May 22, 2013

It's as if Mamet, who directed as well as wrote, decided that the point of the venture was Pacino and didn't much bother to paint in around the star.

| May 22, 2013

As written and directed by Mamet, never shy about his exceptionalist view of Jewish identity, the sympathy the film affords to Spector scans as suspect.

| May 22, 2013

Mamet's script and direction are spot on and richly detailed, from the crisply naturalistic dialogue to the details of Spector's reclusive life.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 22, 2013

Phil Spector doesn't give us much to talk about or applaud.

| May 22, 2013

Mr. Pacino's portrait of Spector is stunning in its guile and vitality.

| May 22, 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.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 22, 2013

The results are tedious, talky and self-important.

| May 22, 2013

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

| May 22, 2013