THE GREATER THE LEGEND, THE GREATER THE FALL. 

In 2011, legendary university football coach Joe Paterno (Al Pacino) is engulfed by a sex abuse scandal creating national headlines; when exactly did he find out that one of his assistant coaches was abusing children? The Jerry Sandusky scandal is depicted through the fall of JoePa, one of the men who knew but turned a blind eye, but doesn’t really succeed in explaining to us what made him fail morally in such a spectacular way. What Barry Levinson does create is an effective atmosphere of claustrophobia and angst, as he did the previous year in another reality-based movie, The Wizard of Lies. Pacino is utterly convincing.

2018-U.S. Made for TV. 105 min. Color. Directed by Barry Levinson. Cast: Al Pacino (Joe Paterno), Riley Keough (Sara Ganim), Kathy Baker (Sue Paterno), Greg Grunberg, Annie Parisse, Ben Cook.

Trivia: Co-executive produced by Levinson. Brian De Palma was allegedly first considered as director.

AVERAGE

IMDb