|
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
|
Positive:
12
Mixed:
7
Negative:
0
|
Critic Reviews
Season 1 Review:
The end result is a film that clumsily tries to sympathize with Paterno instead of the young boys he chose to ignore until it was too late. ... [Pacino] is less at ease with his take on Joe Pa, delivering a performance of a man just as uneven as the film it is named after. ... Riley Keough, Kathy Baker and Annie Parisse deliver strong performances as Ganim, Joe’s wife, Sue, and his daughter Mary Kay respectively.
Read full review
Season 1 Review:
Where Paterno feels somewhat hollow, as "Wizard of Lies" did, is by essentially joining this story late in the fourth quarter. Yes, it's interesting to watch Paterno's end as his family tries to rally around him, but there are too-few glimpses of Penn St. in his heyday, when he and others conveniently looked the other way.
Read full review
Season 1 Review:
Paterno is a more distinctive-looking movie than a lot of these HBO biopics, though, again, it isn't really a biopic. Thin supporting characters, the strange structural choices and the still-elusive nature of several facts in the timeline make Paterno more of an introspective snapshot of a tragic moment of reckoning than anything revelatory.
Read full review
Season 1 Review:
The script is weak and the direction is weaker, as Levinson tries to walk a fine line on the issue of Paterno’s involvement for the sake of the tacked-on finale. Fortunately, Pacino’s performance counterbalances the problems with the film, as do solid performances by Kathy Baker as Paterno’s wife, Sue, and Riley Keough as journalist Sara Ganim, who would win a Pulitzer Prize for her work on the sordid case.
Read full review
TV Guide MagazineMar 29, 2018
Season 1 Review:
Director Barry Levinson fumbles in his latest collaboration with star Al Pacino. ... Paterno spends most of the movie stewing in irritable confusion. [2 Apr - 15 Apr 2018, p.11]
Current TV Shows
By MetascoreBy User Score






