I was a big fan of the previous Al Pacino/HBO biopic pairing, You Don’t Know Jack, which taught me more about the life of the infamous Dr. Jack Kevorkian than a thousand features on CNN could.
BUT, sadly, lightening doesn’t strike in this for instance. This “biopic” deals exclusively with the infamous record-producer/weirdo’s court case for murder. Now it’s true that this might be the juiciest part of Phil’s story, but it seems off not to provide some context for how the man got started. As it is, we’re treated to a half-warmed-over court case and a lot of Pacino-as-Specter, raving at the universe in a way that makes you wonder if he’s crazy or crazy like a fox. [Al’s portrait of Kevorkian was much more layered, but you argue that the man was more layered as well. Specter doesn’t quite have enough ambiguities to serve as a first-rate character.]
Even the mystery if Phil’s character could have been a tantalizing mystery, but, as is, the film never comes to fully to life. Grade: C