The Program *** (2015, Ben Foster, Jesse Plemons, Lee Pace, Chris O’Dowd, Dustin Hoffman) – Movie Review

Ben Foster is good as cyclist Lance Armstrong, who never stops cycling – or lying, apparently. ‘I have never tested positive’, he says positively as he categorically denies drug-taking over and over again. Foster is totally convincing as the fastest thing on pedalling wheels, a man driven to win at all costs, and he even looks like Armstrong.

Like Foster’s performance, director Stephen Frears’s The Program is good, highly watchable, without being great. The cycling scenes are well staged, convincing and buzzing, if again not thrilling. But the drama meanders over a long narrative, never quite focusing as sharply as you’d hope. There’s tension throughout, but it’s sporadic and not sustained.

Chris O’Dowd gives a rather smug performance as David Walsh, the Irish sports journalist becomes convinced that Armstrong’s performances during his Tour de France victories are fuelled by banned substances. John Hodge’s screenplay is based on Walsh’s own book, and this gives the film a feeling of some kind of pay-back on Armstrong, though admittedly deserved of course.

The documentary The Armstrong Lie is a far better experience, against the odds sympathetically viewing the fallen titanic hero as a doomed character with just one fatal character flaw, and managing all the details of the long-running story in a more coherent and commanding way. It’s odd that in The Program, the legend that is Armstrong comes out more appealing than the truth that is the journalist. It’s just a lack of empathic understanding in the script for its main character.

He’s the villain, he’s the liar, he’s the drug abuser, but he’s also the charismatic character, like a cycling Mr Ripley, the talented Mr Armstrong. It’s fine that The Program comes over as an advert for crusading journalism, but not perhaps so good that it comes over as an advert for The Sunday Times.

Frears seems out of his comfort zone and some of the actors are not nearly as convincing as Foster. Dustin Hoffman is wasted in what’s only a cameo as Bob Hamman, Jesse Plemons is Floyd Landis and Lee Pace is Bill Stapleton.

Nevertheless, all reservations aside, Foster is very good and The Program is highly watchable, especially for those who missed The Armstrong Lie.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

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