Paterno (2018)

Paterno (2018): written by Debora Cahn and John C. Richards; directed by Barry Levinson; starring Al Pacino (Joe Paterno); Riley Keough (Sara Ganim), Benjamin Cook (Aaron Fisher), Kristen Bush (Dawn Fisher): Solid biopic focuses on the chaotic two-week period in November 2011 during which legendary Penn State college football coach Joe Paterno fell from grace as the decades-long pedophiliac predations of his long-time defensive coach Jerry Sandusky came to horrifying public attention despite years of cover-ups by Penn State coaches and administrators. 

How much Paterno knew and when remains a point of contention, and the movie does not authoritatively state when Paterno knew and what he did. Damning emails suggest that at the very least he knew 14 years before the events of the film. Testimony from some of the accusers suggest that Paterno may have been covering up Sandusky's predations for decades. Why? The movie suggests more than anything that a pedophile was a distraction from the business of winning football and molding minds and building a legacy at Penn State. 

A thankfully subdued Al Pacino plays Paterno as a man who may have had a guilty conscience, but whose focus on football, football, football not only isolated him from worries about pedophiles but larger questions of morality and responsibility. Pacino is good as Paterno, though he pretty much just plays a quiet version of himself. 

Among other things, this is a very good study by Levinson and his writers of how a cover-up gains and gathers its own momentum over the years, crushing morality beneath it but also crushing those who perpetuated it if the truth comes out. Riley Keough is solid and under-stated as Sara Ganim, the reporter who first broke the story, waited six months for anyone to pay attention, and subsequently won a Pulitzer Prize for her journalism. Recommended.