Is Stephen Frears cozying up to Michael G. Wilson in a ploy to cinch the gig directing the new Bond film?
It’s a real spank my Lycra moment when Wilson pops up as Lance Armstrong’s oncologist early in THE PROGRAM, Frear’s biopic of the disgraced dope pedaller, delivering the dour diagnosis of dual cancer – cranium and testicular.
Come to think of it, there are similarities in the Armstrong story to the Bond franchise other than an appearance of Michael G. Wilson. Both feature a megalomaniac intent on world domination – in this case domination of global cycling. Both feature femme fatales, of sorts, both are shot in beautiful locations, mainly France in this case, and the scenery is awesome.
It’s a chase, it’s a race, it has pace, loads of action and a mad scientist as a kicker.
It has a bizarre plot that is totally contemporary but has all the traditional drama of the classic thriller – pursuit, subterfuge, showdown.
Ben Foster is terrific as Armstrong, playing a villain, as demanding of fierce fealty in his organisation as any pussy stroking fiend with a fetish for fighting fish and a penchant for piranhas. He and his entourage think nothing of hooking themselves up to intravenous contraptions to carry out their venal plans.
THE PROGRAM takes its name from Armstrong’s strong arming insistence that everyone on his team must be on the program.”Lance Armstrong surveyed the cycling landscape and thought ‘you can’t win without doping’. He had to do it and he believed his team mates had to do it. So, on the US Postal team they established a system of cheating through performance enhancing drugs. It became The Program and if you were on the team you had to be on The Program.” writes David Walsh, author of Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong, the book on which THE PROGRAM is based.
Reading the book, screenwriter John Hodge discovered a modern phenomenon that he thought “would be worth having a go at on the big screen. The elements of personal struggle, rise and fall, globalisation, the exploitation of media; so many aspects of modern sporting life and modern celebrity; and the wish fulfillment of a public that wants to invest in heroes and is then disappointed; That cycle that we are all a part of as consumers was something that I was interested in.”
The fearless, peerless Frears handlebars the film with his customary panache and Danny Cohen’s sensational cinematography captures the agony and the ecstasy of hurtling through the Alps, beautiful images of the athletic and the aesthete.
Ben Foster’s almost Aryan presentation as Armstrong enhances his henchman head honcho appearance and his look when challenged by David Walsh, played by Chris O’Dowd, could certainly kill. Walsh is no suave tuxedo wearing blunt instrument but his resolve is as dogged and steely as that not so secret servant. Nice work too from Aussie actor, Mark Little, as a fellow journo.
Ethics gets a pummeling in this story as much as the physiological grueling, and audiences will no doubt be wrestling with the quaint notion of a level playing field, not only because of this film, but in light of recent revelations that have left Olympic results limp and hobbled by chemical enhancement.
Sartorially suspect but symbolic of vested best, the Yellow Jacket is cycling’s holy grail, the garment proving greatness, and Armstrong would do whatever it took to wear it, becoming a champion cheat and elite liar.
THE PROGRAM is an engrossing and entertaining examination of the “Cycology” of doping with bespoke drugs and the lancing of Armstrong by the red hot poker of hubris