The Armstrong Lie (2013)

THE ARMSTRONG LIE  (2013)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Alex Gibney
How Lance Armstrong, premier cyclist, cancer survivor and hero to millions, won seven straight Tour de France titles, doping and lying about it all along the way. Gibney's original idea was to make a documentary about Armstrong's comeback to compete in the tour in 2009, but the controversy surrounding his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs and his repeated, emphatic denials wouldn't go away, and that's what the movie ended up being about. It's a little long, and it might be more effective if Gibney had figured out a way to keep himself out of it, but the access he had gives Armstrong plenty of screen time to make his case, or undermine it. There's a lot of footage of Armstrong dissembling - ducking, dodging, spinning and trying to evade the mounting evidence against him. What's striking isn't the lies as much as the viciousness behind them, and Armstrong's obsession, on the race course and away from it, not just to win but to destroy anybody who gets in his way. It's a toxic combination of ruthlessness, spite and egomania that earns Armstrong some outspoken enemies in a sport where a traditional code of silence would normally protect him. The same pathological drive that makes him great is the thing that does him in.