Paterno

I'm not going to talk about the film as a film because, it seems to me, a pointless exercise. We all know the story. Painful, bitter, shattering. What we didn't know, what we couldn't even imagine is what was in Joe Paterno's heart in mind. Now we have a plausible, profoundly human version of it, in Al Pacino's eyes. I saw a decent man of his generation confronted by the new approach to decency. I saw in his eyes a sort of resignation, the kind of resignation suffered by the decent man who knows he's guilty. Al Pacino is still breaking ground, still at the vanguard of his own profession. Hurrah !

History repeats itself once again with the systemic failure, from the top down, of the incompetence of so many people who chose to ignore a problem and pretended that nothing would ever happen due to their inability to accept responsibility and accountability. A very good performance by Al Pacino as Joe Paterno. You won't regret taking one hour and 45 minutes to view this film.

If it does nothing else than remind you that acting legend Al Pacino still has what it takes to deliver a commanding lead performance, then HBO's and Barry Levinson's Paterno is worth the watch.

After what seems like years' worth of average to bad performances in feature films (bar the loveable Danny Collins), Pacino has quietly been going about his business with some impressive projects in the world of the small screen in roles for such films and series like Phil Spector and You Don't Know Jack and Paterno is another impressive feat for the living tressure, even if the film around him can't quite match his on-song turn.

Much like Pacino, director Barry Levinson has struggled over the last decade or so to recapture the directing form that helped him deliver classics like Rain Man and Good Morning Vietnam in the 80's, with forgettable 2000 films such as Envy and The Humbling doing nothing but tarnishing his reputation as a filmmaker of note, so it's nice to see Paterno offer the talented artist a chance to showcase his abilities once more, even if this experience is a lot more dreary and dramatically focussed than we'd usually see from him.

Focussing its attentions on a very specific and publicly profiled period in the life of the aging and famed Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and his entanglement in the horrific sexual abuse allegations that swirled around his onetime colleague Jerry Sandusky, Paterno offers a brief glimpse into the life of the winningest coach in college football history and how these terrible abuses tarnished his final days as a member of the Penn State fraternity.

Paterno gives Pacino one of his most quietly devastating performances to date, there's no showy moments here and under some impressive makeup, Pacino utterly convinces as the recognisable and well-loved American figure even if the film around him does feel like it can't quite escape its TV movie origins.

With Levinson focussing so much of his time on Paterno, other characters within the film feel rather underdeveloped and lacking in screen time but with Paterno taking centre stage, we are gifted into an insight into a haunted man who is slowly but surely coming to the realisation that despite all the good he has done, a misguided and terribly misjudged component of his life will be what he takes to his grave.

Final Say -

It feels and acts like the TV movie that it is but thanks to Pacino's commanding turn and the insight it offers us into a particular time in the life of one of the most fascinating football figures ever to have lived, Paterno is a cut-above other similar TV biopics and a reminder to us all that Pacino still has what it takes to anchor a feature film.

3 ½ campus riots out of 5

People who hate this film or its implications that Paterno was complicit to the child abuse are wrong. He clearly was part of the narrative. He maybe never witnessed the abuse himself. But he never reported what happened when he heard about such incidents. I understand that plenty of people are sympathetic to Paterno even if they aren't Penn State or football fans. The film to me seems to clearly display Paterno as a figure who probably would have stayed obsessed with winning football games even if 99% of the people who care about him and football, didn't care about football. And he didn't do anything to deserve someone like Sandusky being hired. Paterno with luck could have never had such an incident and be revered today. And plenty of people revered today might have made the same mistakes as Paterno if they had to deal with Paterno's issues. That doesn't mean that Paterno and others had no responsibility to do the right thing and report Sandusky as soon as possible.

It's remarkable how quickly Paterno's fall happens after his 409th win. I forgot that he went from the winningest couch that almost everyone loved, to fired in less than week. I give this a 7 because the story wasn't that interesting, even though there seemed to be good execution.

I think what bothers people is that the real enemy of this film isn't so much Joe Paterno or Jerry Sandusky. Instead the main enemy is America's priority of putting football and other interests over our more basic human responsibility of protecting children and bringing likely sex abuse criminals to justice as quickly as possible.

After Paterno is fired and he addressed his supporters in front of his yard, be almost forgets about the victims in his address. He just throws in a call to support the victims at the very end. The victims should have been brought up initially or not at all. The error in this response really displayed his faulty priorities again.

The reactions of many of many reviewers is similar to the students protesting in the film following Peterno being fired. This story really highlights our power of denying the errors of people we grow to respect. OJ and Mafia defenders have similar blind spots. People say "Sure they made a mistake on this matter, but they weren't bad about everything. Who hasn't made a mistake?" As if the scope of the crime doesn't matter.

It's remarkably easy for some people to shield acknowledging that someone like Joe Paterno, who might be mostly good 99% of the time, can be complicit to a seriously crime the other 1% of the time. And that 1% was a 1% mattered a lot. Another common response is, "Paterno wants to be known as a legendary football coach. Not a football coach who also had to deal with child sex abuse by one of his couches." Well the media rather than the university addressing this issue from the start let Sandusky fester and abuse dozens more of decades.

I can't help but wonder how it ever felt ok for people to know someone was molesting children and not report them. If someone witnesses a murder, A) I don't think the witness would report the incident to their boss or couch. But B) if they did, they'd be sure law enforcement was in the loop too. Especially if the witness notices that the murderer walking around where he committed his crime years later. Child molesters are extremely likely to repeat their crimes. Much more so than almost any other type of criminal. This is something people should know and care about. It seems that a lot of people are unprepared to deal with such an incident and think it'd never happen to them or someone they know. This film gets a 7 largely for bringing this issue more-so into the spotlight.

Based on the perceptions of other reviewers I get the feeling that people don't want other films based on true stories like Paterno, or Spotlight. They don't want to think about the faults of people who seemed mostly fine. My response: Put an end to such incidents happening, and more importantly festering, and there will be no extraordinarily awful true story to make a movie about down the line about our supposed heroes. Instead we can just have real heroes. The fact that, for now, such things still happen, only reinforces the need to make movies like Paterno.

Until we go decades with nothing like this happening, I'll find it relevant to be aware of stories like Paterno. In the last year or two we learned of a similar case of child abuse with the US gymnastics team. Maybe someday we'll learn.

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.