Super frustrating movie. I just cannot recommend it even to people who want to know more about the case. It's good acting and the scenes look fine, but it's so damn badly written and edited. What the hell went wrong? It's an illusion of quality while in reality it's a very lazy movie.
So it's a movie focused on a child abuse case. Jerry Sandusky, a co-coach at Penn State, was abusing kids for years. Often bringing them to the university dressing room which is why many employees at the university saw it year after year, but not a single called the cops at any point. Joe Paterno was a legendary football coach there, basically the biggest name at the university. So in 2001 when his co-coach also saw a sexual abuse crime take place in the showers he told about it to Paterno. Paterno then went to 2 other university workers days later. And they decided to keep it hidden. They knew about former abuse cases too, but felt like they could keep it quiet and just hope it went away or maybe deal with the issue later. Problem fixed? Except while the university looked the other way one teen who was abused post 2001 came forward and the police followed up on it. Finally years later they arrested Sandusky and it was revealed that the university let Sandusky keep doing this for years by looking the other way. He was fired for child abuse, but was allowed to use their showers so he kept bringing in kids to abuse and the university even had to point out he couldn't bring in kids anymore. They didn't contact the cops or even investigate the crime. Just covered it up. Honestly a decent movie about this case would be an amazing story. Spotlight (2015) proved this. It was a spectacular movie with amazing acting. About a case very similar to this, but just with way fewer interesting names involved. It won 2 Oscars. A movie about the Sandusky case could have been even better despite the horrible topic. This isn't.
We follow Joe Paterno as the accusations reach the media. Outsiders have critical questions. Students love Paterno and feel like the outsiders are horrible and cruel. Paterno initially says this will be his last season because of the case. As he therefore has refused to quit the university is forced to fire him. This sort of stuff is horrible for their image and they can't employ people who actively hid this stuff. The movie never really tells the story of the abuse. We never find out what happened or when. They use a few flashback scenes and some light exposition scenes, but it's all a giant mess that never makes sense. Maybe 15 times they sit down and start to talk about the case with Paterno. And each and every time something happens. A phone rings, a knock on the door, a football game on TV is more fascinating to them, they start to talk about other matters, someone gets sick, the 2 sons start to fight with each other. It's just this again and again. The movie is about no one explaining anything. We follow Paterno and some of the time a local journalist. They start to talk about the case and something else happens in the scene - rinse and repeat. So Paterno is asked about what he knew maybe 15 times. Each time he looks away and just mumbles something about football or him not really being interested in this child abuse case as he's just a coach. So Al Pacino as Paterno just mumbles in all his scenes. He looks utterly lost and confused. Not even knowing where he is or what he is doing. We therefore get absolutely no info from him on the story. People watching the movie won't understand anything. The journalist could have been used for exposition, but they do the same thing with her. She never gets to talk or listen as everyone is interrupted all the time. At one point the movie finally tries to explain the events. At the journalist office they draw up a timeline with the years. Then someone walks into the room and tells them about an external call and after that they start to talk about an article and what words they used in the article. In another scene she interviews a victim and her phone rings. So the scene peters out.
Jesus this is frustrating. It's just a giant mess of a movie. It looks fine and the acting is quite fine. But it's just a bunch of people screaming at each other. 50% of the movie is about football or just smalltalk. 50% is about people trying to mention the case, but everyone just talks past each other and then move onto football talk again. What is this even? This may be the most frustrating movie I have even seen. There is no story here.
All you had to do to make a good movie about this case is just to recreate what happened when. We could follow a journalist and get new clues along the way. As it is this movie can be replaced by a simple timeline explaining the events. There is nothing worth your time here. It's not a bad movie. It's just utterly pointless.
So it's a movie focused on a child abuse case. Jerry Sandusky, a co-coach at Penn State, was abusing kids for years. Often bringing them to the university dressing room which is why many employees at the university saw it year after year, but not a single called the cops at any point. Joe Paterno was a legendary football coach there, basically the biggest name at the university. So in 2001 when his co-coach also saw a sexual abuse crime take place in the showers he told about it to Paterno. Paterno then went to 2 other university workers days later. And they decided to keep it hidden. They knew about former abuse cases too, but felt like they could keep it quiet and just hope it went away or maybe deal with the issue later. Problem fixed? Except while the university looked the other way one teen who was abused post 2001 came forward and the police followed up on it. Finally years later they arrested Sandusky and it was revealed that the university let Sandusky keep doing this for years by looking the other way. He was fired for child abuse, but was allowed to use their showers so he kept bringing in kids to abuse and the university even had to point out he couldn't bring in kids anymore. They didn't contact the cops or even investigate the crime. Just covered it up. Honestly a decent movie about this case would be an amazing story. Spotlight (2015) proved this. It was a spectacular movie with amazing acting. About a case very similar to this, but just with way fewer interesting names involved. It won 2 Oscars. A movie about the Sandusky case could have been even better despite the horrible topic. This isn't.
We follow Joe Paterno as the accusations reach the media. Outsiders have critical questions. Students love Paterno and feel like the outsiders are horrible and cruel. Paterno initially says this will be his last season because of the case. As he therefore has refused to quit the university is forced to fire him. This sort of stuff is horrible for their image and they can't employ people who actively hid this stuff. The movie never really tells the story of the abuse. We never find out what happened or when. They use a few flashback scenes and some light exposition scenes, but it's all a giant mess that never makes sense. Maybe 15 times they sit down and start to talk about the case with Paterno. And each and every time something happens. A phone rings, a knock on the door, a football game on TV is more fascinating to them, they start to talk about other matters, someone gets sick, the 2 sons start to fight with each other. It's just this again and again. The movie is about no one explaining anything. We follow Paterno and some of the time a local journalist. They start to talk about the case and something else happens in the scene - rinse and repeat. So Paterno is asked about what he knew maybe 15 times. Each time he looks away and just mumbles something about football or him not really being interested in this child abuse case as he's just a coach. So Al Pacino as Paterno just mumbles in all his scenes. He looks utterly lost and confused. Not even knowing where he is or what he is doing. We therefore get absolutely no info from him on the story. People watching the movie won't understand anything. The journalist could have been used for exposition, but they do the same thing with her. She never gets to talk or listen as everyone is interrupted all the time. At one point the movie finally tries to explain the events. At the journalist office they draw up a timeline with the years. Then someone walks into the room and tells them about an external call and after that they start to talk about an article and what words they used in the article. In another scene she interviews a victim and her phone rings. So the scene peters out.
Jesus this is frustrating. It's just a giant mess of a movie. It looks fine and the acting is quite fine. But it's just a bunch of people screaming at each other. 50% of the movie is about football or just smalltalk. 50% is about people trying to mention the case, but everyone just talks past each other and then move onto football talk again. What is this even? This may be the most frustrating movie I have even seen. There is no story here.
All you had to do to make a good movie about this case is just to recreate what happened when. We could follow a journalist and get new clues along the way. As it is this movie can be replaced by a simple timeline explaining the events. There is nothing worth your time here. It's not a bad movie. It's just utterly pointless.