Paterno

The portrayal of Paterno is right up there with Pacino’s very best work. Kudos to HBO for keeping him center stage, which is where he still belongs.

Brilliant as ever, Pacino is the master trickster who manages to both demonize and humanize Paterno.

This film is about the culture of complicity that grew up around Sandusky’s crimes, primarily because no one wanted to tarnish or slow down the awe-inspiring triumphs that Paterno was scoring as the winningest coach in college football. It’s an unusual way to tell this story, but Pacino and director Barry Levinson pull it off, scoring their own, more low-key, triumph. ... It’s a very good performance in a very good film that avoids sensationalizing the crimes in order to explore pain on many levels.

It's a fine, if recessive, performance, but Paterno himself gets lost in the shuffle as director Barry Levinson covers every aspect of the story. [6/13 Apr 2018, p.84]

The film is watchable, certainly, but also wayward. Its effects feel scattered, its points lost as the story looks here, looks there; Paterno has many things to show you, but less to say.

Where Paterno feels somewhat hollow, as "Wizard of Lies" did, is by essentially joining this story late in the fourth quarter. Yes, it's interesting to watch Paterno's end as his family tries to rally around him, but there are too-few glimpses of Penn St. in his heyday, when he and others conveniently looked the other way.

Director Barry Levinson fumbles in his latest collaboration with star Al Pacino. ... Paterno spends most of the movie stewing in irritable confusion. [2 Apr - 15 Apr 2018, p.11]