Paterno (2018) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Barry Levinson

Starring:  Al Pacino, Kathy Baker, Riley Keough, Jim Johnson, Annie Parisse, Greg Gunberg, Benjamin Cook

You can't think of Joe Paterno without linking him to Jerry Sandusky.   Paterno coached 46 years at Penn State and won an NCAA record 409 games, but once the Jerry Sandusky scandal broke, Paterno's legacy was forever tarnished.    The questions still linger and will do so for a long time about how much he knew and whether he did enough to protect Sandusky's victims. 

Paterno, directed by Barry Levinson, believes Paterno knew more than he let on.   As reporter Sara Hanim (Keough), who won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking the Sandusky story, put it to her editor:  "You can't shit at Penn State without JoePa's say so,"   It is difficult for her to believe that Paterno's first and only encounter with Sandusky's crimes occurred in February 2001 when assistant Mike McQueary witnessed Sandusky assaulting a child in the shower in the Penn State locker room and told Paterno about it.   Why didn't anyone contact the police?   Not the campus police, the actual police?    Because in McQueary's mind, Paterno was bigger than the police.   Penn State administrators also told no one, and three were convicted of child endangerment years after Paterno's death from cancer in 2012.

We learn Paterno knew about a Sandusky incident in 1998 and as the movie ends, Hanim receives a tip from a victim who was told by Paterno in 1976 to drop his complaint against Sandusky.   Penn State has paid out insurance claims as far back as the 1970's due to Sandusky's conduct.    Why would Paterno knowingly risk children's lives and well-being?    As the movie and the Freeh report state, he was concerned first and foremost about his football program.    When the Sandusky scandal made headlines shortly after his 409th win, Paterno ignored the scuttlebutt and concentrated on the next big game against Nebraska.   "They're 7-1," he tells his family as he studies their game on TV, oblivious to the controversy surrounding him and his program.  

Al Pacino not only looks like Paterno, but captures his almost singular, obsessive focus to Penn State and football.    It is likely this myopia that caused such tragedy in the final months of his life.    We first see Paterno undergoing a CAT scan and he thinks about all that has happened in the month or so prior.   He once thought of Sandusky as a good man and a trusted friend, and probably still did even after hearing about his crimes against children at The Second Mile, Sandusky's charity ostensibly to aid troubled children, but was in fact more of a factory of potential victims for him.    He couldn't reconcile the man he knows with the monster who lived within him.    Each time we see Sandusky in the film, he wears a devious, evil smile of a man who has gotten away with something.   

Levinson's film wisely does not make Paterno out to be a martyr or a victim.  We see him as a man with endless power who did not wield that power enough to stop Sandusky.   Think about if Paterno acted correctly on the first incidents he knew about.    He would be a candidate for sainthood today.   But, for reasons only known to Paterno himself, he did not wield his authority properly.

Pacino is the standout here, but Keough also stands out as the determined reporter with ties to Penn State and a certain love for Paterno which is now checkered by the scandal.    We hear audio clips of national news coverage condemning Paterno and Penn State, and how could we not understand the outrage?    

Some of Paterno's best scenes involve Aaron (Cook), the first victim to come forward against Sandusky and suffered backlash at school on top of the injuries he's already endured.   His scenes take on a quiet power, but also demonstrate the belief that some people were angry at him and victims like him for coming forward and upsetting the Penn State apple cart.    It is sad and outrageous, but the truth is stranger than fiction.    If you don't believe me, read the op-ed pieces in the year or so following Sandusky's conviction.    People began to thaw towards Paterno and wondered when the NCAA sanctions would be lifted against Penn State and when Paterno would get the wins stripped from him back.   They were interested in making Paterno's legacy whole somehow, but not affording the same interest to Sandusky's victims.    This, like the movie Paterno, is sad, angering, and almost a microcosm of how sports-obsessed a culture we are.