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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Features/  Film review: The Program
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Film review: The Program

A film about Lance Armstrong that portrays the disgraced cyclist as a one-dimensional villain

Film still from ‘The Program’Premium
Film still from ‘The Program’

Sporting achievements are often equated with heroism because athletes are able to push their physical limits to lengths we can only imagine. Lance Armstrong was once a hero. A cancer survivor who won seven Tour de France races, the American cyclist inspired hundreds of people suffering from the disease to fight back, raised money for his cancer foundation, earned millions in endorsements and socialized with heads of states and Hollywood stars.

Over the years, he passed doping tests and continued to be an icon for sportsmanship, survival and teamwork.

But Armstrong was also a cheat. This fact was revealed slowly as suspicions grew stronger over the implausibility of his achievements, until his world imploded in 2012. Due to the diligent investigation of a Sunday Times journalist, David Walsh, Armstrong was exposed as someone who used performance-enhancing drugs while competing.

The once “most tested athlete in the world" also ran the “world’s most sophisticated drug programme in the world" for the longest time before his own arrogance and insatiable ambition brought him crashing down to earth.

In The Program, director Stephen Frears tells this story from the time young Armstrong (Ben Foster) is first recognized as a “single stage" racer by Irish journalist Walsh (Chris O’Dowd). After Armstrong starts achieving much more than that, rapidly escalating to long-distance road racing, Walsh’s radar switches on. Armstrong recovers from a life-threatening disease diagnosed in 1996 to return to competitive racing and wins seven Tours between 1999 and 2005. During this entire period, Walsh follows Armstrong’s story doggedly. He faces scepticism from fellow journalists, and even lawsuits, before the truth reveals itself.

Frears’ film, based on Walsh’s book Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong, intersperses archival footage with the scenes he has shot to capture how Armstrong put together a team that follows his lead in a diabolical “program" to hide his drug use. The team includes unethical doctor Michele Ferrari (Guillaume Canet), former cyclist Johan Bruyneel (Denis Ménochet) and others, and its single-minded ambition is to make Armstrong a champion. They put themselves through an extensive programme of doping and transfusions in order to enhance their performance and then dodge the drug tests—all this is part of Armstrong’s scheme to manipulate the system to satisfy his ambitions. Among them is cyclist Floyd Landis (Jesse Plemons), whose conscience and circumstance are pivotal in exposing Armstrong.

Cinematographer Danny Cohen catches your attention with the opening shot itself, of a gorgeous winding road surrounded by mountains, and then further enhances the mood by capturing the drama and speed of competitive cycling. The film tries to capture the essence of Armstrong’s crime, but it fails to explain how this boy from Austin, Texas, broke all sporting codes to win. Foster works hard on the character, but the portrayal is rather one-dimensional as he interprets the disgraced racer as twisted, shrewd, arrogant and ambitious. We feel no sympathy for this man at all in this rather straightforward account of Armstrong’s dramatic life story.

The Program released in theatres on Friday.

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Published: 11 Mar 2016, 02:02 PM IST
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