"The Armstrong Lie" is oddly disjointed, somewhat confusing and leaves us cold, only growing our previous collective feeling of betrayal by Lance Armstrong. In "The Armstrong Lie," Alex Gibney creates an informative documentary that captures the feeling of hopelessness we felt in 2010 as we witnessed the fall of the man who almost became synonymous with the word “hero,” even to those of us who never sat down to watch him cycle.
Gibney originally set out to collect footage of Armstrong’s comeback to cycling after his initial retirement. He was documenting the story of our hero, the narrative with which we fell in love. When Armstrong admitted to the growing amount of doping allegations in 2010, Gibney was abandoned and left to rework the tale of an idol into the revealing backstory of a traitor. It is now the arrogance of Armstrong we see - the man who completely decimated the reputation of anyone who challenged him. The initial storyline of Armstrong as a hero ends with him unsuccessfully organizing a comeback to selfishly silence his criticizers, and we are left wishing for a happier ending.
However, Gibney’s hand as a director isn’t prevalent in the film, rather, the film acts more like a jumbled folder holding all the documents that led to the reveal of Armstrong’s falsehoods. It documents his narcissistic youth, his cold demeanor as he looks into Gibney’s camera to admit his cheating and the history and culture of doping during Armstrong’s reign as a Tour de France champion. Gibney makes it interestingly clear how hard we were getting hit over the head with clues. This is the backstory we never wanted to hear before the doping allegations. Yet, this is where the film has the most impact. Ultimately, "The Armstrong Lie" demonstrates why we should never really meet our heroes.
Grade: B
Rating & Runtime: R, 122 mins.
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