You’ve read the news articles, watched the TV reports, seen the documentaries and perhaps even trawled though the affidavits. So, it was only a matter of time before you got to see Lance Armstrong’s story play out as Hollywood drama.
Twice Oscar-nominated Stephen Frears’ film is the first, but surely not the last, past the post in what was a rise and fall of such monumental proportions it was always destined for the multiplex.
The Program was inspired by, rather than adapted from, David Walsh’s book Seven Deadly Sins, the Sunday Times journalist’s 2012 book that served as a greatest hits – and something of a vindication – of his turbulent 13-year quest to expose Lance Armstrong as a drugs cheat.
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To pad out the narrative, writer John Hodge – perhaps an ideal choice, given that he got his chops telling stories of debauchery with his screenplay for Trainspotting – also pored over the US Anti-Doping Agency’s (USADA) ‘Reasoned Decision’, its investigation into Armstrong and the goings on at his US Postal team. Production was a whirlwind; filming was finished less than a year after Walsh started work on his book.
Racing scenes that reek of realness
The opening scene is promising; Armstrong, climbing alone and silently but for the sound of his heavy breathing, at the head of a stage of the Tour de France with the camera slowly closing in behind him. It’s a relief to see cycling on the big screen that feels real. We’re then sent back to 1994, via Walsh’s (Chris O’Dowd) first encounter with Armstrong at his debut Tour a year earlier, to La Flèche Wallonne, the Belgium classic where the Gewiss-Ballan team cleaned up with a 1-2-3. Its doctor was the now-disgraced Italian Michele Ferrari (Guillaume Canet), who’d become so intertwined in the US Postal scandal.
Mixed performances
A story in need of a fresh angle?
Behind the scenes…
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