Paterno

Very dramatic and hard to watch because I feel so angry about those poor kids.

between this and The Wizard of Lies, HBO has a firm command on the "old man wanders around hallways as voiceovers question his morals" subgenre. but because the film focuses on Paterno and is forced (or "forced") to linger in the ambiguity of his actions, there is, essentially, no narrative at all. instead it is a meandering rumination on A Thing That Happened, with much of that Thing's significance -- the impact on the Penn State program -- assumed to be already known. just read the Wiki.

Feels like it could have been compressed into a 10 minute documentary. The movie moves at a snails pace, we don’t get to see hardly any development of Paterno, or chemistry between him and other characters. He’s kind of just there. As a result we’re forced to watch a couple of events slowly unfold over an hour and 40 mins. The reporter and the first kid to come out are by far the most interesting in the film. Only recommended for those who’ve followed the events and are truly interested.

75 (Me) - 65 (IMDB)

65.

Amazingly boring effort from Levinson.

This was very had to get through. I suppose I understand the logic in using the most public figure to weave through this scandal but we spend most of the film sitting with a doddering old man who's unreliable and barely says anything of substance. The film provides almost nothing

Mediocre writing and even worse directing results in a barely coherent telling of an extremely charged story. When Pacino is allowed to just act--which is not enough of the time--he's great.

Dull, drab film which has interesting and potentially explosive dramatic material at its disposal, but can never settle on the angle it wants to take; some half-hearted ruminations on the damaging repercussions of these sensitive issues to all parties playing out as trial by media are the most interesting moments. Pacino seems sadly disconnected and tired here, save for some brief, lukewarm sparks towards the end, and none of his co-stars make much of an impression. A bit of a sad waste of time.

While Pacino does his best work in years it felt very unnecessary to paint Paterno as the person who was uncertain through out the film. It was said over and over and over throught the film that Joe knew and did very little and the narrative still tried to paint him in this light of uncertainty. It was a hard film to watch as the details unfolded given the horrfiic crimes Sandusky committed and Penn State covered up.