The Program: Lance Armstrong Lies, Cheats, and Dopes his Way to the Top

From 1986 to 1998 Greg LeMond was the only American to have won the Tour de France. He became the only American Tour winner once more in 2012 when Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis were stripped of their victories. For years, Armstrong’s lies and intimidation had covered up his extensive use of performance enhancing drugs (with the timely help of Britain’s stifling libel laws), but the truth eventually came out. Armstrong’s crimes and hypocrisy are portrayed with scathing honesty and dramatic gusto in Stephen Frears’ The Program (trailer here), which opens this Friday in select cities.

Notorious sports doctor Michele Ferrari initially declined to work with Armstrong because he has the wrong body type. Ironically, cancer would re-shape the cyclist to fit Ferrari’s mold. However, Armstrong had already been self-administering EPO before the onset of his illness (this point would have tremendous legal ramifications later). Of course, when the aptly named Ferrari started secretly advising Armstrong’s U.S. Postal Service team, the doping became more sophisticated and systemic. Everyone on the team was implicated, most definitely including their team director Johan Bruyneel. Yet, there is no question Armstrong was the architect and the chief enforcer.

John Hodge’s screenplay, based on the book and reporting of Irish sports journalist David Walsh pulls no punches. It makes it clear just how suspicious Armstrong sudden power was given his past performance, as well as the determination of the Cycling Union and the press corps to ignore all the tell-tale signs. There is no question Walsh is the hero of this story and Armstrong is the villain, but the ways in which the disgraced champion tried to isolate and bully his journalist critic into silence are still pretty galling. The film treatment is not quite as damning as Alex Holmes’ expose, Lance Armstrong: Stop at Nothing, but it is not due to a lack of trying.

Ben Foster is a jolly good physical likeness of Armstrong, but the way he relishes the cyclist’s Machiavellian treachery is a perverse joy to behold. You can practically see him twisting a phantom handlebar moustache (presumably, a real one would increase wind resistance). However, he still manages to pull off humanizing moments, as when Armstrong visits frightfully young and understandably frightened cancer patients.

Guillaume Canet perfectly complements Foster’s sociopathic Armstrong, oozing Euro sleaze as the serpent-like Ferrari. Chris O’Dowd also brings real heft and dimension to the principled Walsh. Although his screen time is limited, Dustin Hoffman gives the film a major energy boost as Armstrong’s legal nemesis, Bob Hamman. While he broods dourly enough as Landis, the sweaty and hulking Jesse Plemons does not look like much of a cyclist.

First and foremost, The Program will convince any holdouts in the audience Armstrong really was and still is a lying-dog cheater. It might also lead some of our British friends to conclude their overly restrictive libel laws are not consistent with a free press. When an unethical charlatan like Armstrong can use it to choke off a legitimate inquiry into wrongdoing, something is badly amiss. Regardless, Frears and Foster create a wickedly entertaining portrait of an epic egomaniac and the wreckage he left in his wake. It is not exactly subtle, but it is massively watchable. Recommended for fans of in-your-face, ripped-from-the-headlines drama, The Program opens this Friday (3/18) in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Town Center.

Lance Armstrong Stop at Nothing: It’s Worse than You Think

In 1998, Greg LeMond was the last American to win the Tour de France. In 2012, LeMond once again became the last American to win the Tour. He had not staged a comeback. The US Anti-Doping Agency had stripped Lance Armstrong of his Yellow Jerseys. Everyone (including Armstrong, to some extent) now concedes the cyclist lied and cheated. However, his former fans will be shocked by the systematic deceit and vindictiveness exposed in Alex Holmes’ Lance Armstrong: Stop at Nothing (trailer here), which airs on Showtime this Friday.

In a matter of seconds, Holmes conclusively proves Armstrong perjured himself. In a videotaped deposition, he flatly denies taking the illegal performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) he later copped to during his Oprah confessional, while readily acknowledging he was under oath. Holmes then rewinds to chronicle the unvarnished story of Armstrong’s rise and fall. Once, he was a clean and promising talent, but he was already cutting shady deals with competing cyclists—or so they allege with accounts of Panettone tins full of cash.

Ironically, Stop at Nothing implies the first Tour might have been legit, but soon thereafter, Armstrong commenced a professional relationship with Michele Ferrari, a notorious sports physician with a reputation for crossing over the line. We know from Armstrong’s own lips he consumed a whole battery of enhancers. According to teammate Frankie Andreu and his wife Betsy, Armstrong also admitted it to his cancer doctors, in their presence, during the early stages of his treatment. That conversation would become the focus of a pitched legal battle.

Arguably, the heroic protagonist of Stop at Nothing is Betsy Andreu. Alarmed by the obvious risks of PED abuse, Andreu forced her husband to stay largely clear of them, which ultimately cost him his place on the US Postal Service Team. Knowing what they knew, Armstrong and his surrogates did their best to pressure the Andreus into silence, but they stuck to their guns when subpoenaed.  

The other heroes of Stop at Nothing are Greg and Kathy LeMond, who were vilified in the media when the former Tour champion diplomatically cautioned colleagues not to lash U.S. Cycling’s wagon so tightly to Armstrong’s star. Former Armstrong Foundation executive director Steve Whisnant explicitly regrets not heeding LeMond’s advice. For his common sense, LeMond was rewarded with canceled endorsements and wild rumors of alcohol and heroin addiction.

At times, Stop at Nothing resembles a gangster movie, where whistleblowers are routinely intimidated and ostracized. Yet, other times, it plays like a spy film, documenting the elaborate means by which Ferrari’s treatments were smuggled to Armstrong’s team. It is all completely gripping and absolutely scandalizing in the tradition of the best true crime books.

There is a general sense Armstrong started lying to himself as well as the cycling world at large, essentially losing sight of the truth. As problematic as that is, the reality is far worse. The portrait Holmes paints is of a clinical sociopath, who fully understood the implications of his actions and would do anything necessary to maintain his righteous public image. It is not pretty, but it is fascinating. Stop at Nothing is a damning indictment and a grab-you-by-the-lapels watching experience. Recommended for fans of cycling and legal thrillers, Lance Armstrong: Stop at Nothing premieres this Friday (11/7) on Showtime, with multiple airdates to follow.