“The Program” by Stephen Frears: The rock star is in the ditch – Tagesspiegel

19:07 clock From Dominik Bardow <- self.position: 1 -> <- classid: hcf center -> <- position: center -> <- text position: hcf text-left -> <- inisprint: false -> <- inhaspic: true ->

On the Dopt: The film “The Program” by Stephen Frears is the abyss of cyclist Lance Armstrong.

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Sex has cycling , despite the cycling shorts, little to offer, but lots Drugs and Rock’n’Roll. So it is appropriate that Lance Armstrong in many scenes of “The Program – at any price” is racing to the sounds of screaming electric guitars through the Alps and Paris roads, cheered by the fans on the edge of the track. The pace, he submits, is breathtaking. Seven consecutive time the Americans won the Tour de France until 2005 and rose to become a rock star of cycling, an idol for millions of people around the world, which had defeated the cancer and was the winner. But how many rock stars he crashed because of the drugs at the end. With the small difference that doping had its services enables the first place.

The Rise and Fall of the greatest sporting heroes of recent times not just provide a perfect movie material. But there is hardly a topic bulkier than the hidden and branched doping systems in professional sports. The first books were already printed, as Armstrong was banned for life in 2012 and lost all the tracks. One of them fell into the hands of Stephen Frears. The British director has both the real life (“The Queen”, “Philomena”) as well as fictive templates filmed (“Dangerous Liaisons”, “High Fidelity”). With Sport of 74-year-old had previously little to do, from a television film about Muhammad Ali aside. Nevertheless earned its producer the rights to the non-fiction book of the Irish journalist David Walsh. The work on the script and the realization found in Hogfather held to yes to get the first Armstrong-film for the screen

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The high pace doing the film initially good. The dramaturgy is similar to a bike race, the Tour de France finally begins with sprint stages, before it goes into the mountains. Action-packed scenes of real Races awaken first the fascination with the dedication and sacrifice that requires this battle with one’s own body, and provide the ground for the disappointment that must follow when the dizziness flies up. Ben Foster, previously specialized in supporting roles, Lance Armstrong looks While hardly similar, but captures the emotional contradictions a well. The disappointing face full of mud when it depend the doped competitors. The grim determination when the doping doctor Michele Ferrari (wonderfully oblique: Guillaume Canet) turns. The despair when he disfigured by chemotherapy through hospital staggers. Even remorse are Foster regarded as Armstrong when he gives cancer patients autographs, who call him their inspiration. But towards the end degenerating the Armstrong character cliché of a James Bond villain who wants to destroy his opponents.

A sports film without Sport

The journalists Walsh (Chris O’Dowd) lacks the format opponent. He has researched against Armstrong, but brings him not only to the case and consequently immersed in only one third of the film on. Armstrong crashes over teammates like Floyd Landis (Jesse Plemons) that enough mitdopen long even, in the end but to testify against him. “The Program – at any price,” explains the facts, but invites them to rarely with emotions. So it is a sports film with no sport in backrooms plays more than on the track. Frears torments himself for fast-paced start getting clumsier by the mountain stages before it the final at the rapid descent to fly apart like a rickety bicycle. Perhaps doping would have helped.

Ben Foster known in interviews to have doped to prepare themselves under supervision. Handgestoppt depends Armstrong in the film good 15 minute on a drip around. The sight can permanently dulled even afraid of needles. Also because of doping, like corruption and manipulation, sports fans after a while just still tired. Until sometime the next Rockstar cheered.

In 10 cinemas in Berlin.

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