In the days following the revelation that Lance Armstrong, the most drug tested athlete in all of professional sports, was in fact blood doping and using banned substances all along, a quote came along that put the whole thing into perspective. “I don’t care if he lied; he’s done unbelievable things for cancer research that have nothing to do with his work on a bike.”
Another article talked about Lance’s skill and strategy on the bike that made him a champion regardless if he took drugs. During one Tour de France he daringly avoided a crash right in front of him and took his road bike offroad for several yards before picking up the racetrack again, not an easy feat while traveling 40 mph down a rough French mountainside.
After winning seven straight Tours de France, Lance Armstrong was undoubtedly seen as a hero, and his scandal was such a shocking lie and omission that the world turned on him in an instant. You really had to pick sides and decide, do you hate the man and believe he should be stripped of his titles or don’t you care and feel he should be respected for what he’s done on and off the bike regardless?
Alex Gibney’s “The Armstrong Lie” teeters on those two sides. It’s hardly the only documentary chronicling the details of his lie, but it’s notable as the only one that features a candid Lance. Given that leg up, you would hope Gibney would do one of two things: tear into him and expose him as a psychologically damaged, pathological liar, or actually pay the man some respect and understand why he lied in the first place.
Gibney started making the film upon Lance’s return to the Tour de France in 2009 after Lance’s retirement and after the period for which he was caught doping. It was a simple puff-piece about an American hero, and the scandal has left Gibney torn. It’s a documentary that explores the details with more incisiveness and more honesty than any other account, but it also falls into some of the same hyperbole traps and spewed, talking head hatred of Lance as so many other news accounts defaulted to.
The Lance Armstrong we see here is a storyteller, someone who didn’t just want to win but wanted the narrative to go along with it. His comeback story from cancer fueled in him a desire to prove people wrong and show that the disease transformed him as an athlete. But Lance also argues that doping was what he had to do to compete and win, and if making that narrative a reality involved a shocking amount of lying, bullying and manipulation, so be it. Some, Lance included, might argue that being competitive, dedicated and loyal to a cause no matter what would be positive traits.
Gibney makes that assertion by painting him with the same broad brush while dealing with his philanthropic responsibilities at Livestrong. Lying wasn’t just part of the job but was a personality trait associated with his competitive edge. “The Armstrong Lie” ultimately points a lot of fingers and raises a lot of nuance about whether his actions were justified, but it falls just short of how he was really thinking.
Unable to coax the answers or emotion out of Lance, Gibney pads “The Armstrong Lie” with journalists who use hindsight to claim they knew something was up the whole time, as though this master liar couldn’t pull the wool over their eyes. He interviews former teammates and acquaintances who give the same testimony they gave Dateline or 20/20. He even somewhat misses the point of the sport. He describes the peloton and breakaway groups, key elements of any bike race, as though Lance coasted along on the efforts of his teammates to get him to the podium.
“The Armstrong Lie” is about as good a document as you’ll see of the Lance Armstrong scandal and legacy. I was an ardent fan of the sport of cycling while Lance was a star, and I came away from the documentary more conflicted about how I actually felt about the guy now than before. It turns out the intense level of scrutiny he received was warranted, but is continuing to demonize him still worth it?
3 stars
What Gibney does so well is that he allows for Armstrong to tell his side of the story, as plainly as humanly possible. And because of that, he seems more like a dick. Good review.