Being a former student at Penn State and being raised in a family where Penn State football is a way of life, I may be a little bias on this subject. I really did not enjoy the Paterno HBO movie. The fact that they look a man name and legacy to spin the topic of a movie for media attention and money-making scrams is disgraceful. How is someone going to make a movie about a situation especially one as bad has serial child abuse and name it after a man that was not involved? They should have called the movie Sandusky; it would have been more appropriate. Instead, they chose to name the movie after the biggest name they could and the man who passed away suddenly and can no longer defend his name.
Other than the name, there is also a lot of other things I found wrong with the film. Mainly the fact that the writers insinuated a lot of things that are just either untrue or unprovable. Many of the conversations Joe has are private, with his family. Flashbacks and conversations with Tim Curley and Gary Schultz. Many instances like that had me question much about the film and its integrity.
Writers also twisted many things that were either in the news media at the time or in the Freeh Report. After doing much research myself and going over news articles, watching videos, reading the grand jury testimony, Reading the entire Freeh and Paterno reports, you can tell HBO did their research as well. I commend them for that, but they took the research and formed it to fit their narrative. Taking snippets of press releases here and pieces of the Freeh Report there and pasting them into situations that did not happen. For example, they took Joe Paterno’s Grand Jury testimony about what Mike McQueary changed the wording of it and placed it in a concertation with Graham Spanier in Joe’s home office. I understand you have to make good movies, but why do we have to lie about it?
The one thing I do disagree on with many people is that I do believe Al Pacino did a good job playing JoePa. People are saying that it was like Al Pacino playing himself with glasses. I could see that, but they are both old school Italian guys from New York. You have to see the similarity just in that and maybe that is why I feel like he did a good job. The way Joe always talked with his hands Al got down pat and I don’t believe anyone else could have played him better. Even if it was him basically just playing himself in a movie.
The way the movie was shot was done in a fashion that I can appreciate. The way they took shots and recreated them from news reports and also mixed in some actual footage from the time back in 2011 was seamlessly and if do not remember from then or didn’t do research on the matter you wouldn’t know the difference.
I did not enjoy how they tried to make it a flashback while Joe was in the MRI. That did not really make sense or have any relevance in the movie. You could have skipped over that whole part and not missed anything of the movie. I actually did miss it the first time I watched it live. Just seems like it is a time filler to make a full-length movie. The same goes for many if the scenes showing Sara Gamin. If the movie is about Joe Paterno, why is she relevant? The only that I thought was very clever is there is a scene where she is with her editor going over the timeline of the victims and she is reading Jerry Sandusky’s autobiography “Touched.”
The scene about the riots, I mean I get you have to put that in there it was a big deal, but it was long. The dubbing over of interviews and things the media were saying at that time, most notably Steven A. Smith’s voice is heard, wasn’t the greatest timing for that. That part with all the energy being shown on screen and the dubbing made me the angriest while watching the film. Maybe that was the point but I don’t want to be sitting on my couch livid while trying to watch a movie. Also, if you are going to make a historical movie keep everything in the right time period don’t make a movie based in 2011 with iPhone 7s and Apple Watches.
To be completely honest I hated this movie. That probably goes back to my bias. I don’t want to get into the whole "did Joe know, did he not" thing. I will tell you I read the Freeh Report in its entirety and it has a clear agenda and if you read it with your own agenda you can take away from it that there was not even a distinct cover up. Let’s try to make it about the movie. I think the main reason it angered me was back to the beginning of my review where is said they took a man and his name to try and make sales. I can never get behind something that or someone who does that.
The movie is not about Joe Paterno it is about the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. Maybe it should have at least a different title.
