***SPOILERS*** Excellent portrayal by actor Al Pacino of legendary pop music pioneer as well as song writer & producer Phil Spector who's high flying career in the music industry came to a sudden crash on February 3, 2003. It was then that aspiring actress Lana Clarkson was found shot to death, with a bullet in her mouth, in his mansion, or castle as he called it, with Phil being the only one at the scene. Arrested for murder Spector hired top NY defense attorney Bruce Cutler, Jeffery Tambor, the guy who successfully defended mob boss John Gotti to represent him in court. As things turned out Cutler had to drop out of the case due to prior commitments leaving his assistant Hellen Mirren, Linda Kennedy Baden, to defend him.
Spector who's talent was only matched by his bazaar and arrogance behavior soon turned out to be the his own worst enemy at his murder trial. Being difficult to control by his lawyer Miss. Baden Spector despite the evidence that could be proved him innocent turned the public against him not in his accused murder of Miss. Clarkson but his totally indifferent to the charges against him as if they were some kind of joke on Spector's part. It at first seemed like a slam dunk in favor of Spector in the blood splatter evidence that seemed to show that he was nowhere near Miss. Clarkson at the time of her death. Thus proving that Clarkson's death was the result of either a suicide or accidental shooting not murder but his behavior in court,which included wearing a number of ridicules wigs,made the jury overlook those important facts in his murder trial.
***SPOILERS***It was after a hung jury at his first trail that Spector was retried that in the end sealed his fate. With a frustrated Linda Baden doing everything to convince the jury to find Spector innocent she also contracted pneumonia undercutting her attempts to successfully defend him.In the end and after the film, which was released before the jury verdict, was over Spector in his second trial got all that was coming to him. Not in that the jury finding him guilty of murder but in him doing everything he could to make that possible by his strange and bazaar antics both in court and in public.
What would have been a run of the mill made for TV movie was elevated by both actors Pacino & Mirren in the leading roles of Phil Spector & Linda Baden who gave the film the first class acting that you almost never see in made for TV movies. Pacino as the tragic music mogul Phil Spector who made a total mess of his life and those, like his estranged wife and children, near and dear to him and Linda Baden as attorney Mirren who defended her unstable client to the best of her ability. Only to have him blow the case, which could have been won by a first year law student, out of the water and her client ending up getting a 19 year prison sentence.
Spector who's talent was only matched by his bazaar and arrogance behavior soon turned out to be the his own worst enemy at his murder trial. Being difficult to control by his lawyer Miss. Baden Spector despite the evidence that could be proved him innocent turned the public against him not in his accused murder of Miss. Clarkson but his totally indifferent to the charges against him as if they were some kind of joke on Spector's part. It at first seemed like a slam dunk in favor of Spector in the blood splatter evidence that seemed to show that he was nowhere near Miss. Clarkson at the time of her death. Thus proving that Clarkson's death was the result of either a suicide or accidental shooting not murder but his behavior in court,which included wearing a number of ridicules wigs,made the jury overlook those important facts in his murder trial.
***SPOILERS***It was after a hung jury at his first trail that Spector was retried that in the end sealed his fate. With a frustrated Linda Baden doing everything to convince the jury to find Spector innocent she also contracted pneumonia undercutting her attempts to successfully defend him.In the end and after the film, which was released before the jury verdict, was over Spector in his second trial got all that was coming to him. Not in that the jury finding him guilty of murder but in him doing everything he could to make that possible by his strange and bazaar antics both in court and in public.
What would have been a run of the mill made for TV movie was elevated by both actors Pacino & Mirren in the leading roles of Phil Spector & Linda Baden who gave the film the first class acting that you almost never see in made for TV movies. Pacino as the tragic music mogul Phil Spector who made a total mess of his life and those, like his estranged wife and children, near and dear to him and Linda Baden as attorney Mirren who defended her unstable client to the best of her ability. Only to have him blow the case, which could have been won by a first year law student, out of the water and her client ending up getting a 19 year prison sentence.