Movie Review | London Film Festival: The Program (Lights, Camera, Action!)

The Program (UK Rating: 15)

Frears has a different approach, taking his inspiration from a book by Sunday Times sports journalist David Marsh, one of the first to question Armstrong's performance once he returned from cancer treatment. Marsh features in the film, as well, played by Chris O'Dowd. The story itself has been well documented: how Armstrong not only recovered from cancer but cheated his way to seven Tour de France victories and went to huge lengths to cover it up, including the foundation of his own cancer charity.

Unusually for a Frears film, there's no sympathetic central character (his next project is the story of off-key singer, Florence Foster Jenkins, with Meryl Streep in the lead) and he struggles with it so much that he spends the first half of the film trying to find something likeable about the man. During his chemotherapy, he cuts a literally pathetic figure with no hair or eyebrows. Later on, he visits a children's cancer centre and willingly spends time with a desperately sick young boy. There must be some good in him, right? Armstrong (Ben Foster), however, is the ultimate anti-hero and Frears eventually has to throw his hands up in surrender, staging an explosive face-off between the cyclist and his manager (Lee Pace). The megalomaniac is out of the bag and there's no going back!

This means that the second half of the film plays out like a detective story. Fellow cyclist and former team member, Floyd Landis (Jesse Plemons), tests positive for drugs and confesses, incriminating Armstrong along the way. The denials follow, together with Armstrong's personal intimidation of other cyclists, expensive and lengthy law suits, and David Marsh's exile from the Press Pack. It's only later that it all comes crashing down.

7/10

Very Good - Bronze Award

When a story is this well known, the film version can only include so much tension, so The Program concentrates on the complexities of Armstrong's character, making it a gift of a role to an actor of Ben Foster's talents. Lance Armstrong's fall from grace was sensational, the film less so, but there's a compelling performance at its centre, one that makes the ride more than worthwhile.