Paterno

Barry Levinson's Paterno wants the viewer to know that this legendary college football coach, Penn State University and its football team supporters cared more about its football program than the fate of some of the young people sexualy abused by an assistant football coach, Jerry Sandusky.

The film opaquely hints as to how much Paterno might had known as to the abuse taking place and like other people just turned a blind eye.

After a wonderful expansive opening where Paterno as head coach takes the team to a record breaking streak. This HBO film settles down as a Shakespearean tragedy, almost like a stage play.

Al Pacino's Paterno is a man out of his time. Confused, weak and sick. He is an octogenarian who knows all about college football but has no way to handle the mess he finds himself in.

The film contrasts Paterno's fate with that of local newspaper reporter Sara Ganim (Riley Keough) who doggedly pursued the story of the child abuse and who earned the trust of the families.

However the flip flopping between the two story strands feels like a distraction. Levinson's approach comes across as mild, even anodyne lacking the moral outrage of a movie like Spotlight.

While its not another HBO masterpiece, I found it interesting enough to watch the whole thing and enjoyed it. I liked many things about it but I also didn't like some things, and I'll talk about that. At the beginning, it starts with the indictment so I was worried we wouldn't give enough background going back to 1998, but thankfully the film has many flashbacks and the reporters are also used as an explanation device of the past. The film did not shy away from the tough aspects of this tough subject. I did enjoy the Paterno scenes where he is confronted on the charges and how he deals with it, though it can be a little slow. I found the framing device to be interesting and Al Pacino's performance was great, I didn't see Al Pacino, I saw his character. The cinematography was also top notch, what can be expected from and HBO movie. But there were things I didn't like, and I will discuss it.

I personally didn't like how they opened it, they opened it in a spot where a lot of things already happened, but to be fair the film does go back and explains things. The pacing is also hit and miss, sometimes things are paced fine, and sometimes I felt it jumped around too quickly. I also wish is a bit longer or a show because there were a couple story points I feel could have been explored more and would have been beneficial to the story to delve into. I also didn't connect with any of the other characters except for Paterno, no character really stood out and wowed ne. All in all it was an interesting enough film that I finished and mostly enjoyed.

Very disappointed in this sketchy HBO presentation. which glosses over many key characters and injects bits and pieces of real events and presumed behaviors to a viewing audience which can be easily confused by the scattershot script and direction. It seemed like a series of story boards out of order. The film needed much more character development, as well as more coherent storytelling.

I watched this movie at home on DVD from my public library, my wife skipped it.

I have been a football fan all my life and, while I never was a Penn State fan (go Purdue!) I knew of Joe Paterno and how respected he and the Penn State football program were. I also clearly remember when the events of 2011 broke wide open.

This movie stars Al Pacino as Joe Paterno and, while he does fine I was constantly reminded of the actor by his raspy voice. Paterno had a calm smooth voice, even near the end.

Still the movie is a good dramatization of the events of 2011 that led to Paterno's firing, just a couple of months before his death, when the details of former coach Sandusky's activities with young boys became fully known.

It was argued, and it seems plausible, that as head of the football program Paterno should have known more and should have done more earlier in the Sandusky case, so he was fired in November 2011. Paterno is portrayed as a rather simple man who focused so much on the football and preparation for next games that he was either unaware of Sandusky's activities or just wanted them to go away without his strong involvement.

A good movie of a sad chapter in college football programs.

Cable TV is really hitting it out of the park these days. Paterno is one of the better movies I've seen in awhile including theatrical movies. I probably don't need to recap the entire plot for anyone, since the news covered it widely at the time. This film centers on the horrific Penn State scandal of sexual molestation of young boys by a man who was at one time on the Penn State coaching staff and was a "pillar of the community." What makes this different though than any news coverage you've seen is that it goes inside Joe Paterno 's life to show the downfall of a community and sports icon from the inside.

Of course, one must take into account that filmmakers take some license when it comes portraying Paterno and his family. While I'm sure they did their research, they weren't actually sitting at his dining room table for those intimate encounters with his kids during the aftermath of all of this. I think a question that most people had when they heard about the scandal was, "What was Joe Paterno thinking? Why did this powerful leader not do more? What was going on inside head?" This movie delves into that, giving an interesting and very possible take on what really was going on inside Paterno's head. Other great things about this movie: Riley Keough is fantastic as the reporter who originally breaks the case, and Al Pacino is so amazing as Paterno that you will forget you are even watching Pacino.