Do you have a video playback issues?
Please disable AdBlocker in your browser for our website.
Due to a high volume of active users and service overload, we had to decrease the quality of video streaming. Premium users remains with the highest video quality available. Sorry for the inconvinience it may cause. Donate to keep project running.
The film centers on Joe Paterno, who, after becoming the winningest coach in college football history, is embroiled in Penn State's Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal, challenging his legacy and forcing him to face questions of institutional failure regarding the victims.
Unfortunately, no amount of makeup or prosthetic noses can hold [Al] Pacino back for long, and his growl is so loud sometimes that it overpowers the vision of the wounded god Paterno became.
It speaks to viewers with disparate reactions, but it also speaks to anyone who didn't dig into the scandal at the time by outlining what happens when we are too quick to defend the famous faces instead of those claiming to be victimized by them.
Where this movie may really lose you, though, is when it asks you to care about what and when Paterno knew of the abuse, or even to feel sorry for him.
As a motion picture, Paterno is at odds with itself - playing both as a chamber piece character study and a Spotlight-style investigative journalism procedural - never really finding its true footing.
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.