Paterno movie review & film summary (2018)

This line, of course, carries an added resonance with Al Pacino cast in the titular role. “Paterno” marks the actor’s third collaboration with Levinson as director, the first being another fact-based HBO film, 2010’s “You Don’t Know Jack,” which deservedly earned Pacino an Emmy. The greatness of his performance as Jack Kevorkian, the controversial doctor who aided ailing patients in ending their lives, was in its subdued nature. Though the opportunities for scenery-chewing were plentiful, such as when Kevorkian showed up in court dressed in a wooden pillory costume, Pacino stayed true to the grounded persona of his character, who kept his cool even while facing an outrageous jail sentence. Kevorkian’s flaws were never more apparent than when he made the unwise decision to represent himself in court, yet he was also a noble figure. Viewers fearing that Levinson will take a similarly sympathetic view of Paterno can rest assured that this film is far more merciless in its portrayal of unchecked hubris. 

The methods utilized by the coach to keep calm and collected on the field are hopelessly misguided when applied to weathering the Sandusky sex scandal. As family and colleagues attempt to break the news to him, Paterno’s eyes remain glued to the television, a telling sign of how his attention was always consumed with football, so much so that it took years of badgering for him to even consider dating. His penchant for drawing up game plans while listening to opera takes an ironic turn as his final days veer into an operatic tragedy. Only toward the end does his mind seem to register the atrocious repercussions of the witness accounts he willfully overlooked. Up until then, his reactions amount to an indignant shrug clouded in naiveté (he admits not to knowing the meaning of “sodomy” when it is brought up in the charges). After Paterno’s press conference is cancelled, his silence is deemed a confession, prompting calls for his resignation, as lawyers inform him that he’s not disciplined enough to speak before news cameras. When he makes a brief televised statement to students protesting his firing, feebly coaxing them to “pray a little bit for the victims,” his failure to use the platform bestowed to him in any meaningful way is thoroughly maddening. 

Pacino’s work here is as wrenching and richly textured as any in his astonishing career. Many of his most shattering moments contain no dialogue at all, such as when Paterno is forced to hear his team lose in their first game since his ousting. For perhaps the first time, he finds himself unable to watch the screen, pressing himself against his bed as he listens to players flailing about on the field, cast adrift without the coach’s guidance that had always sent a ripple effect through the stadium. Yet no matter how much the film invites us to share in Paterno’s agony, it never once portrays him as a victim. A large amount of the screen time is devoted to Sara Ganim (a superb Riley Keough), the Patriot-News journalist who did precisely what Paterno should’ve done—track down the students who were abused by Sandusky and serve as the whisteblower empowering countless others to come forth. Her story on the scandal earned her a Pulitzer Prize, and there are distinct echoes of the Boston Globe reporters’ heroism depicted in Tom McCarthy’s Oscar-winner, “Spotlight,” especially when Ganim receives a call from a victim alleging that he informed Paterno of Sandusky in 1976, and was resoundingly ignored by the coach.