Al Pacino Starred In One Of HBO's Most Controversial Original Movies

True crime dramatizations have always been popular because the salacious stories at their center are guaranteed to draw an audience. The bigger the case, the more likely people are to tune in. Unfortunately, true crime also has to try and walk a tightrope between entertainment and depicting the truth, and more often than not, the people behind the shows and movies lean toward entertainment. Sometimes that just means minor inaccuracies, but other times it can paint the case in a totally different (and harmful) light, like Ryan Murphy's framing of the Menendez brothers in his "Monsters" series. That's a problem that's been around for as long as there have been true crime dramatizations, and one of the more egregious high-profile examples starred Al Pacino and Helen Mirren. 

In 2003, actor Lana Clarkson was found dead from a gunshot in her mouth in the home of prolific music producer Phil Spector, who rose to fame producing groups like The Righteous Brothers and The Ronettes before going on to produce Ike and Tina Turner and collaborate with The Beatles. Spector was eventually convicted of second-degree murder in her slaying in 2009 in his second trial, after the first ended in a hung jury in 2007. In 2013, HBO released a TV movie about the murder called "Phil Spector," written and directed by "Glengarry Glen Ross" writer David Mamet and starring Pacino as the disgraced producer. "Spector" took some big liberties with the story, and people were absolutely furious. 

Basically, no one liked "Phil Spector." It was poorly received by both critics and audiences, who were disappointed by bizarre performance choices and some truly terrible wigs that were somehow worse than even those of the real Spector. Even though the film has a card at the beginning that says it's a work of fiction inspired by the events, people involved with the actual case were livid, including the trial lawyer, Spector's wife, and Clarkson's friends and family. In an absolutely scathing piece on the film for Esquire, critic Stephen Marche broke it down:

"The main problem with 'Phil Spector,' however, is not the embarrassing performances or the lousy script or the controversial position it takes on the case. The main problem is that it never makes clear, even for a moment, why we should care."

Despite having a truly star-studded cast and a deeply talented writer-director at the helm, "Phil Spector" was a cavalcade of bad choices. The movie never paints Spector as innocent, indulging in his worst recorded behavior, but its focus is the idea that there was a shadow of a doubt in the case that should have kept him a free man. This controversial take on top of the cornball acting made "Phil Spector" a movie to skip, no matter how much you love Mamet or Pacino.