This workmanlike biopic of disgraced doper and Tour de France cycling champ Lance Armstrong features a very good lead performance from Ben Foster. He conjures up Armstrong’s pop-eyed fanaticism in the cause of winning, and his knack of never giving a straight answer. It’s an interesting film to set alongside Alex Gibney’s 2013 documentary The Armstrong Lie, which was compromised by a certain complicity with its subject, though Gibney just about extricated himself midway through filming when the truth about Armstrong became known.
This movie at least has its story straight. It is adapted by John Hodge from the book by Sunday Times investigative reporter David Walsh (here played by Chris O’Dowd), who battled from the outset to uncover the truth about Armstrong. In a conventional underdog sports movie – the kind that Armstrong probably had in mind for himself – his cancer diagnosis would occur later in the running time and more would be made of his entirely genuine ordeal. Here, the cancer occurs early on, and the emphasis is on his beady-eyed determination to push it to one side and carry on to glory, using the banned drugs that he was quite sure all his competitors were using anyway: only he would use better drugs and conceal them better. It’s a watchable piece of work, but doesn’t quite do justice to the subtle wriggling and squirming and sheer denial that characterised Armstrong’s downfall.
