![]() ![]() Soon, however, he’s faced with the Sandusky news, and seemingly unable to comprehend why he should focus on the threat that the story presents to his job and legacy. Old and frail, the then-84-year-old Paterno is introduced coaching from the press box, as a frenzied crowd celebrates his record-breaking 409th career win. Unfortunately, the shoe leather that went into Ganim’s Pulitzer Prize-winning work – as well as the malfeasance that let Sandusky’s abuse continue unimpeded – is largely glossed over by the structure of the movie, which is concentrated over a few days, after word of Sandusky’s coming indictment surfaced. (Ganim is currently a correspondent for CNN.) Ganim’s quiet, dogged persistence serves as a testament to the need for local reporting, contrasting her hard-earned connection to sources with clueless national media outlets that parachute in, trying to get the story without those contacts or that institutional knowledge. In Paterno, the actor might have found the closest resemblance to his role in the third “Godfather” movie – playing a sick, old, tired man, trapped in a situation he desperately wants to escape, with no idea how to do so.Īs noted, though, Paterno is in some respects a secondary figure in this oddly structured film, whose hero is really a local newspaper reporter, Sara Ganim (Riley Keough), who broke the story about Paterno’s longtime assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, molesting and sexually assaulting young boys while the university looked the other way. ![]() football coach, but in ways he’s a second-string player in this HBO movie, a look at his frantic final days that bears a striking resemblance to – and includes the same flaws as – the network’s recent movie about another Shakespearean fall, the Bernie Madoff story “The Wizard of Lies.”īoth films were directed by Barry Levinson, while “Paterno” features Al Pacino as the Joe Paterno, adding to the actor’s run playing real larger-than-life characters in HBO movies, including Roy Cohn (“Angels in America”) and Dr. “Paterno” bears the name of the legendary Penn St. ![]()
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