The Program, film review: a modern-day story about cheating in sport

The drama focuses on the disgraced American cyclist Lance Armstrong

Stephen Frears’ drama about disgraced American cyclist Lance Armstrong portrays its subject as a modern-day Icarus. After surviving cancer, Armstrong (Ben Foster) announces that he never wants to be “that close to losing” again. The doctor Michele Ferrari (Guillaume Canet) offers him “a heavenly vision”. By taking the wonder drug EPO, he can “learn to fly”. The Sunday Times journalist David Walsh (played by an engagingly humorous and sceptical Chris O’Dowd) soon suspects that Armstrong isn’t racing clean.


 Lance Armstrong in his interview with Oprah Winfrey

Foster reportedly took performance-enhancing drugs while playing the role, and he captures his character’s gimlet-eyed intensity. The film, scripted by John Hodge of Trainspotting fame, is skilful in the way it gives a modern-day story about cheating in sport a mythic feel. The downside is that Armstrong has been pored over exhaustively by authors and documentary makers. Their accounts have a level of detail that a dramatised feature film version inevitably lacks.

Stephen Frears, 103 mins Starring: Ben Foster, Chris O’Dowd, Jesse Plemons