Washington ? Supreme Court justices on Tuesday gave decidedly mixed reviews to efforts to regulate “Hillary: The Movie,” as they considered a case that will shape future election campaigns.

Everyone agrees the 90-minute film is vehemently anti-Hillary Clinton. The justices disagree on whether it’s tantamount to a political ad that can be regulated, or a documentary that enjoys full free-speech protection.

“I saw it,” Justice Stephen Breyer said. “It’s not a musical comedy.”

The hour-long oral argument in the case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, left certain only one thing: The Supreme Court will produce another sharply fractured decision guiding future campaign finance rules.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and Stephen Breyer suggested that they consider the film the kind of campaign advocacy that’s subject to reasonable regulation. By contrast, Chief Justice John G. Roberts and justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito cast the campaign-finance regulations as an infringement on the First Amendment.

Alito in particular drilled home the point that campaign books might be banned next if the Obama administration prevails in the argument that campaign-finance restrictions extend to a lengthy documentary film.

“That’s pretty incredible,” Alito said, to say that “if a campaign biography was published, that could be banned.”

A conservative group called Citizens United produced “Hillary: The Movie” and released it in January 2008. Featuring conservative commentators such as Robert Novak and Ann Coulter, the movie repeatedly describes Clinton with words like “cunning,” “ruthless,” “deceitful” and “Machiavellian.”

At the time of the film’s release, Clinton was a senator in the midst of the Democratic presidential primary.