THE PROGRAM
DIRECTOR: Stephen Frears
CAST: Lee Pace, Chris O’Dowd, Ben Foster, Dustin Hoffman, Jesse Plemons,
CLASSIFICATION: 13 DL
RUNNING TIME: 103 minutes
RATING: 2 stars (out of 5)
Theresa Smith
Based on the book by Irish journalist David Walsh (O’Dowd), this is basically the dramatised fast-forward version of Lance Armstrong (Foster) cheating at the races.
Taking its cue from the novel, the film gives us lots of and then, and then, and then, but not much insight into Armstrong’s mindset or why he thought he could get away with cheating. What we get here is all ground covered in Alex Gibney’s smartly-constructed 2013 documentary The Armstrong Lie, just fictionalised because it is acted out by a group of solid actors.
The Program foregrounds the Armstrong character but is a sports biography which never attacks or tears down the cheating cyclist in any way. The story starts with Armstrong at the moment when he thought he was peaking, his diagnosis with cancer, the treatment, his decision to dope it up, the sequence of Tour de France wins and some of the fall-out once the doping scandal broke.
Ben Foster is compelling as Armstrong, giving us the magnetic side of the cyclist’s personality as he persuades teammates and organisers of the US Postal Service team doping is the way to go. He is convincing when he avers he isn’t taking any performance enhancing drugs, even when the next scene shows him doing exactly that. But even though the story traces Walsh chasing down elusive clues and potential witnesses, it still paints Armstrong, if not in the best light, at least without negativity. Foster simply smirks knowingly and grabs another trophy.
Chris O’Dowd makes for an amiable journalist, dogged in his conviction that something isn’t quite right, but not exactly the centre around which the film swirls.
There is a lot of detail here – specifics about what lengths Armstrong went to in order to hide what he was doing – that may have been available in various forms, but put together like this it is a strong indictment.
The racing sequences are about as dramatic as things get and you pray someone will take a spill to relieve the evenhandedness of Frears’s direction.
It seems the director was so determined to be fair, he forgot the whole reason people are interested in what the cyclist did was because he lied…
If you liked The Walk or Life, you will like this.