Film Review - The Program

Last minute decision to go and see this one. 

It is a fairly average docudrama re-enactment of The Armstrong lie.

Ben Foster does a very good look-a-like job. So much so that they are able to cut in and out of historical footage of the man himself pretty seamlessly.  Unfortunately, for the most part, his impression is not as accurate. Having seen several of the scenes in their real format the sheer confidence / arrogance of the man just doesn't come across.

Some of the cycling is a bit rubbish as well. Where they use original footage it is obviously going to be boring as they pull a few seconds out to a 20 day race. So instead they film their own with cyclists suddenly sprinting away from groups at minimal effort. American Flyers used the same filming techniques for cycle racing, but executed slightly better, 30 years ago. It is disappointing that modern film-makers can't do anything better. 

The story itself is lacking as well. And this is really a bit strange because the material is there and they just seem to choose not to use it. 

Betsy Andreu is glossed over in two tiny scenes. Wiggins attachment to Festina is never mentioned. Travis Tygart appears but never even gets named. Contador may actually be a dick, I am not a great fan myself, but he isn't as much of a dick as the film suggests. Ullrich is seen in cycling scenes but never mentioned. Landis' potential to benefit financially (in terms of multi-millions of dollars) from outing Armstrong is not mentioned. The moped courier is seen but never explained.

And those choices aren't all biased in favour of Lance. They also do a strange scene where a mechanic adjusts a cable tensioner on his bike that is made to look like it is some kind of mechanical cheating. They gloss over the fundamental changes of approach and tactics that US Postal made to the sport. Tyler Hamilton gets a passing mention as an ex-team-mate, but Hincapie never appears at all. They skip over the death of Casartelli, and the following stage win. They skip over his pre-dope World Champs win (unless you know enough about cycling to recognise the stripes).

So it is a strange telling of the story. Too sympathetic to the cheat, whilst too dismissive of some of the other great achievements. Almost as if the director was scared of portraying such a fantastical story that many of the audience might then consider unbelievable, at the same time forgetting that truth is stranger than fiction. 

The director also seems to have misunderstood his audience. The core audience for this film are going to be people who know the story, so we know how outrageous some of it is. We have watched the real Walsh / Armstrong press conference. So playing it down for us was pointless. The other possible audience was people who don't know the story and want to be entertained, so why play down all the entertaining features?

It really is a poor film. A much better idea is to just go back and watch the Armstrong Lie and see the original footage in a purer documentary format.

Scores 5 out of 10. And I like cycling and knew what was going on. If you don't it is probably a 4.