His portrayal isn’t as powerful or moving, though, and in some ways that’s the conundrum of “Paterno” - it’s a tragedy without a tragic hero. Pacino, who was terrific in both of them, and in “Paterno” he’s similarly understated and thoughtful. Those underappreciated films - “The Humbling” barely got released - have represented a late-career renaissance for Mr. Levinson, and David Gordon Green’s “Manglehorn,” forceful older men coming to terms with lost chances and abilities. Pacino played recently in “The Humbling,” also directed by Mr. On the surface, Paterno fits with the characters Mr. There’s tension around the question of what exactly Paterno knew and when he knew it, and a late plot twist provides what appear to be some answers, but it feels tacked on. Levinson lays this out with considerable skill and energy, but he’s not entirely successful at turning it into drama. Paterno talks a good game about education and shaping young lives, but his main concern is his own professionalism. (Kathy Baker is excellent as Paterno’s wife, Sue.) But his only frame of reference is football, and even there his vision is constricted - in the film’s scheme, the Penn State players are as much in the background as the children Sandusky abused. His perceptions and his responses to events are often smarter and more generous than those of the people around him, who are concerned only with protecting him and the school. The film’s picture of Paterno is, if not sympathetic, certainly nuanced. Paterno puts it off until the discord in his own family and the nagging force of his memories drive him to start reading.
“Have you read it?” is a constant question, and the answer is often no. machine (he died of lung cancer in January 2012), and we watch both recent and more distant events as he recalls them.Ī lot of people in “Paterno” have reasons to ignore what’s happening, and the film uses reactions to the Sandusky indictment to represent years of refusing to look. Paterno, whose epic career ended when he was fired a few days after the indictment was announced, lies inside an M.R.I. Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach, on 52 counts of sexual abuse of minors. The tightly constructed film - at 1 hour 40 minutes, it’s a chamber piece by current television standards - is set during two weeks in 2011, before and after the indictment of Mr. There’s a lot of clamor and fuss in “Paterno,” which has its premiere Saturday, but at heart it’s a film about the lack of action - about things that didn’t get done. Richards, and the director, Barry Levinson, focus instead on Joe Paterno, the beloved head coach of the Penn State football team who froze in the headlights and got run over by history. Jerry Sandusky, the perpetrator, is relegated to a cameo. A dogged reporter (Riley Keough) and one brave victim (Benjamin Cook) get a fair bit of screen time to help fill in the historical record, but they’re not at the center of the story. HBO’s “Paterno” is a film about a real-life sex-abuse scandal in which the abuser and the abused are relegated to supporting roles.
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