Phil Spector : My Review

Reposted from the Movie Awards Board where I posted it first

**************************************************************************
David Mamet's HBO film is a strange mix of fiction, some factual detail, wrapped in a purposely talky face-off between two risk taking film stars bringing their A-games. To say the film isn't for everybody is an understatement - it's going to definitely push away people looking for some sort of true crime expose.

For the most part it does work within its intentions but its pacing and how it's shaped feels off - it starts slow and ends abruptly (so abruptly, I almost think the film was pulled out from under Mamet by HBO perhaps).

The film is very much like a play and as a play it's very much like an intellectual exercise - there's alot in this similar to Oleanna really. What saves it - and what gives it its entertainment value are the supreme intelligence in Mamet's strand of writing and the performances at the center of it.

Pacino here doesn't have a role that's the equal in depth of Roy Cohn or Jack Kevorkian (for one thing, this film is like 90 minutes and he's not in it for all that time to say the least), but he racks up another great piece of work for HBO. At first, it's hard to get a read on where Pacino is going in this characterization. It's clear at the outset he isn't burrowing into the part like he did with Kevorkian, but rather this performance is painterly, impressionistic. He isn't exactly doing formula Pacino at the start, but when he first comes on I wasn't really sure he had this one nailed. But as the piece goes on and Mamet writes him searing rants that reveal extreme narcissism, a keen awareness and simultaneous misunderstanding of himself and mordant humor, Pacino's take on the role snaps into place.

His later scenes in this film are flat-out amazing, and in a way I'd say not actually similar to anything he's done prior that I can exactly put my finger on (maybe a bit of his Shylock in the simultaneous hubris and fear). This is the kind of performance that is uniquely his own - right off the bat some people are going to call BS on it, and others are going to find it riveting. It's that one element that makes him so unique - not just that he would take this role, but how he goes about it - he risks looking foolish, indeed he courts it with his choices in this part.......but by the end the characterization is so vivid you can't shake it.

Now having said that, this is clearly the weakest of his 3 HBO films overall, and by the nature of the piece, he doesn't hit the same heights he did in the previous 2 in performance (what might have he done with a 3 hour film I wonder). The ironic thing is this may end up being more watched than those other 2 in the long run and more of a touchstone in his career filmography given that the other 2 immediately turn off some viewers due to their subject matter (and in the case of AiA, its length). There's alot in this that plays like "iconic Pacino" more than his previous HBO work.

Mirren matches him scene for scene and their back and forth is really exciting and immediate. She gets the tone of response to his speechifying just right and in a way keeps their scenes real since Mamet's Spector is so out there. The accent police are going to gripe about hers in this but she grounds the film and it's really her story, her arc is what the piece is really about narratively. She's our eyes for what this interpretation of Spector is - she's our conduit to processing everything and she's in very fine form here.

I'd rate it something like a B/B minus because of my love for claustrophobic hermetically sealed acting exercises like this. If anything, this film reminded me mostly of "Secret Honor" (it's not as good as that) - so if you've seen that and liked it, I think this will be enjoyable as well.