The Program: Beautifully portrays the rise and fall of a sports legend

The Program: Beautifully portrays the rise and fall of a sports legend

FPJ BureauUpdated: Friday, May 31, 2019, 05:18 PM IST
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Film: The program

Cast: Ben Foster, Chris O’Dowd, Dustin Hoffman, Jesse Plemons, Lee Pace, Guillaume Canet

Director: Stephen Frears

This biopic of a sporting legend who was outed for the illicit use of performance-enhancers makes it to the screen three years after a documentary, Alex Gibney’s 2013 The Armstrong Lie and just as Russian tennis diva Maria Sharapova is being hauled over the coals for a similar infraction.

Ably directed by Stephen Frears (The Queen) from a screenplay by John Hodge (Trainspotting) The Progam is about the insatiable drive to win at any cost.

The movie stars Ben Foster (Survivor) in the lead role of cancer survivor turned cycling legend Lance Armstrong who rocked the sports world with his cheating, well-rehearsed lies, and deplorably, intimidation of fellow cyclists on the US Postal Riders team who professed contrition.

Armstrong seems to think doping was legit. “It’s not muscles, it’s not lungs, it’s heart,” Lance Armstrong (Ben Foster) remarks matter of factly, as the viewer watches him cycle up a mountain. It begins before he embarked on his first Tour de France (Armstrong would win several in quick succession).
Armstrong’s nemesis, doughty journalist David Walsh is played by Chris O’Dowd, whose questioning and indefatigable spadework helped to unravel the web of deceit which encompassed the entire American team.

As it happens, Walsh’s book Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong served as the inspiration for the film which is well paced and makes terrific use of cinematographic recreations and archival footage and music (I loved the Leonard Cohen song at the end and Dustin Hoffmann).

The viewer (and you don’t have to be a cyclist or sports lover) will be riveted by Armstrong’s rise and fall from grace. Where it falters is in its omission of his personal life – especially his well publicised relationship with the singer Sheryl Crow who is referred to only in passing.

Foster is spot on as the athlete whose single-minded passion brought him back from death’s door but ultimately felled him. Passion for winning is Armstrong’s fatal flaw, even as it is not to his fellow cyclist Floyd Landis (Jesse Plemons). You empathise with Armstrong as he seeks treatment for his cancer and hope he’ll make it through and it all seems so acceptable, when Dr Michele Ferrari (Guillaume Canet) takes him through the paces.

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