Alex Gibney already made a fairly high-profile documentary about the Lance Armstrong scandal (The Armstrong Lie), but why bother with that when you can see actors lip synch it? Thus we have Stephen Frears’ The Program (my high school football bros are not going to be happy about them using this title), starring Ben Foster as Lance Armstrong. Foster (who is a fantastic actor) seems to be playing Armstrong as some kind of pedal-pushing Pat Bateman, all dead behind the eyes and obsessed with winning. So much that he DANCES WITH THE DEVIL of DANGEROUS DROGES.
The Program also stars Lee Pace, Dustin Hoffman, Jesse Plemons and Guillaume Canet, with Chris O’Dowd playing David Walsh, The Journalist Determined to Bring Him Down. I just hope it offers a little nuance and isn’t the usual Shakespearean rise and fall horsesh*t. Judging solely from the trailer, it seems to rest heavily on the shocking notion that a cyclist might be taking performance enhancing drugs, which is sort of like the shocking notion that a politician might be taking money from shady donors. If you ask me, Lance Armstrong is a hero for getting anyone to care about a sport as boring as cycling.
“Bro, did you see the French team draft on that 10K incline? It was so incredible, I almost pissed my spandex hot pants.”
No release date yet.