Director: Stephen Frears
Running Time: 103 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: February 15th 2016 (UK)
Over the years, numerous movies about Lance Armstrong have been in the works but never got made. Indeed, one was about to move forward just as he admitted he had doped for his entire career. It’s almost a shame we don’t have a movie from when he was almost universally admired as a hero, so we could compare it to the darker world of The Program.
At the start of the movie Lance (Ben Foster) is an okay but unexceptional cyclist, who few think will ever do anything special. After overcoming testicular cancer, he returns with a passion to win, and knowing the world of cycling is riddled with cheats taking performance-enhancing drugs, he decides he will do the same, enlisting the help of Michele Ferrari (Guillaume Canet) to allow him to set up a ‘Program’ that will help him win, as well as arranging to have a team built around him that will ensure a Tour de France victory. [Read more…]
The moment it became clear Lance Armstrong was finally going to admit to doping during his cycling career, Hollywood immediately jumped in and put several biopics in the works. The first to arrive is The Program, directed by Stephen Frears and with Ben Foster in the lead role.