Review of The Armstrong Lie (2013) by Harry W — 03 Mar 2014

While Lance Armstrong was never a figure I cared too much about and a documentary about him would not be my first choice of films, when I won free tickets to see The Armstrong Lie I couldn't miss it.

And I am glad I didn't, because I learned so much from The Armstrong Lie, including many facts about Lance Armstrong I never would have imagined to be possible.

All the praise for The Amrstrong Lie can be aimed towards one person: director Alex Gibney. Because despite the fact that he has clearly been upset by being lied to by Lance Armstrong after having been friends with him for so long, he doesn't make The Armstrong Lie a self-indulgent excuse to criticise the man like Oliver Stone did when he directed the 1995 Biopic of Richard Nixon titled Nixon. Instead, Alex Gibney keeps things on a professional level and ensures that he never makes the film a direct criticism of Lance Armstrong but rather a depiction of the real nature of the cyclist and the effect he has had on the world of sporting.

Referring back to what I said about Nixon, The Armstrong Lie takes a look at the sporting universe on the massive scale that it is, and so when it reveals the crimes of Lance Armstrong, it characterises him as the Richard Nixon of the sporting universe. As he lied to everybody worldwide so that he could succeed against the odds and against the rules, his deceitful actions which changed the world forever reveal the fact that he is one of the most disgraceful, egotistical, pompous, stuck up, snot nosed, giant twerp scumbag f*ckfaced dickhead assholes of all the sport figures in the world, and that includes convicted rapist and excessively violent Mike Tyson. The Armstrong Lie gets deep into Lance Armstrong to reveal that he is actually nothing but shallow and egotistical. It reveals that he has no regrets for lying to the whole world and has actually deluded himself into thinking that he never actually cheated by claiming that since apparently a lot of other cyclists were cheating, it wasn't cheating for him to do the same. Well, newsflash Lance Armstrong, it is.

The film reveals his ignorance and just how big a dickhole he actually is, and it does that not just by analysing him as a person, but as a former international hero. Certain elements of The Armstrong lie are cringe-worthy to watch, because the film depicts all the people who had so much faith in him that they could not accept the lie, including a woman who threatened the life of another person who spoke out against him. And when audiences bear witness to him visiting young children with cancer and see just how inspiring he is to them, instantly it is easy to pick up on the true extent of damage he has done. The scale of damage Lance Armstrong has caused is easy to pick up on in The Armstrong Lie.

It is really unlbelievable that everything in The Armstrong Lie is true, and the nature of it is so powerful that it is easy to have an impact made on the viewer by what is depicted on screen. When the events surrounding his lies actually occurred, I only heard from third-party news stories and gossip magazines a loose version of what actually happened, and I never watched or read either of them because it didn't sound like the worst thing in the world and also because gossip magazines are full of poorly constructed lies and cries for attention. But The Armstrong Lie depicts the true nature of what Lance Armstrong has done, and it just goes to show you how much a person can turn horrible when facing rigourous competition. And while the film does take a rather sympathetic look at the challenges he faced in dealing with cancer and the great nature of professional cycling for all its athletes, everything is overshadowed by the fact that Lance Armstrong is a pseudo-hero and a liar. And the funniest thing is that the fact makes a point to emphasise that had he not been such an idiot to have attempted a comeback in 2009, he would have gotten away with all his lies. But since he was so egotistically focused on competing, he sacrificed all the inspiration of his façade and his false yet believed heroism to attempt to win again. Lance Armstrong's biggest loss was the fact that his ego conflicted with common sense, and yet to this day he still has no idea just what an idiot, an asshole and a liar that he is. It can be concluded that Lance Armstrong learned nothing, but what we learned about him is that he truly was a despicable person and really was the Richard Nixon of the sporting universe, and so I would dub his scandal "Cyclegate". I dare anyone to see The Armstrong Lie and then disagree with me, because most likely you will be as thoroughly surprised as I have been.

The Armstrong Lie is a dedicated effort on behalf of Alex Gibney, and he compiles an excellent amount of footage and edits it into the movie at perfect timing. The film does face some issues towards the end though because it becomes repetitive in talking about the same thing again and again instead of exploring a wide range of issues like it did in its first act. And the repetitive nature of the second act eventually becomes a bit too long and it just goes on for a while in circles until finally concluding, so it doesn't have the same effect in the second half that it did in the first.

But nevertheless, there is no denying that The Armstrong Lie is an intelligent and insightful look at a despicable human being and a liar in the same manner that Richard Nixon was looked at for the Watergate scandal, and it is handled appropriately without ever being self indulgent or an attack on Lance Armstrong.