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The Program

2015

Stephen Frears

Ben Foster, Chris O'Dowd, Jesse Plemons, Guillaume Canet ...

5.9

2,549

Drama An Irish sports journalist becomes convinced that Lance Armstrong's performances during the Tour de France victories are fueled by banned substances. With this conviction, he starts hunting for evidence that will expose Armstrong.

Tagline: Winning was in his blood.

	Author	Review
United Kingdom	Catherine Shoard The Guardian	"Foster plays Armstrong (...) He does it brilliantly (...) The Program is flawed. But it's a fluid and nippy telling of a tale (...) And Frears finally decides to be merciless (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of five)"	POS
United States	Leslie Felperin The Hollywood Reporter	"Unable or unwilling to probe Armstrong's psychology in any depth, The Program becomes just a glib rehash of old news that brings the story up to date (...) a disappointment on nearly every level."	NEG
United Kingdom	Tim Robey Telegraph	"Ben Foster's tour de force. (...) The actor is eerily brilliant as Lance Armstrong in Stephen Frears's otherwise unfocused doping drama (...) Rating: ★★★ (out of five)"	NEU
United States	Guy Lodge Variety	"Rare is the prestige biopic that feels altogether too short, but after 102 soundly paced minutes, “The Program” retires with half a hill left to climb."	NEU
United Kingdom	Dave Calhoun Time Out	"Foster's Lance Armstrong is like something from a horror movie in Frears's eerie biopic (...) The film shirks finding a hard-and-fast fresh perspective. Instead it approaches the story from various cumulative angles (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of five)"	POS
United Kingdom	Kaleem Aftab The Independent	"The film is based on the official US drug agency report on Armstrong, which might explain why it often feels like a stale reportage. (...) Rating: ★★ (out of five)"	NEG
United Kingdom	Fionnuala Halligan Screendaily	"Frears examines in almost-forensic detail the process by which Armstrong chemically engineered his own and his team's performance. But feature is ultimately unbalanced (...) 'The Program' works best when it deals with this fascinating case of investigative journalism"	NEU
United States	Nikola Grozdanovic IndieWire	"A couple of exhilarating cycling scenes, and a pretty solid lead performance, does not a good movie make. (...) With practically zero biographical insight into the man behind the cyclist, this Lance Armstrong feels barely three-dimensional"	NEG

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The Border Legion

1924

William K. Howard