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Cinema

The Program could do with a good dose of performance-enhancing drugs

It’s as if one half of the story can’t be bothered to go meet the other half, like the film’s bored of itself

17 October 2015

8:00 AM

17 October 2015

8:00 AM

The Program

12A, Nationwide

The Program, as directed by Stephen Frears, is a biopic of Lance Armstrong, the American cyclist and ‘sporting hero’ who came back from cancer to win the Tour de France seven times before he was exposed as a drugs cheat. It is a thrilling fall-from-grace story, the sort that brings you out in goosebumps just thinking about it — to know you have cheated, to know you are about to be found out, to live with having been found out; how might any of this feel? This should have served Armstrong up on a plate, but it somehow doesn’t.

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