If Alex Gibney isn’t the hottest documentary maker going at the moment he’s certainly a nominee. The Oscar-winner, who came to our attention in 2006 with Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room has tackled the topics of Wikileaks and abuse of deaf children in the Catholic Church in the last year alone. So the prospect of his investigation into the drug allegations and confession of the world’s most famous cyclist, Lance Armstrong, is deeply enticing.
Unfortunately, at heart, that isn’t what The Armstrong Lie is. Though the camera is fixed closely on Armstrong, this is as much a documentary about Gibney himself. The film Gibney first planned in 2009 would have been a high quality fluff piece as he followed the Tour, was embedded with Armstrong and effectively drank the Kool-Aid of the comeback narrative – but something in Gibney stopped him and he shelved the project.
Then in 2013, Amstrong confessed to the world, via Oprah. Gibney went back to him and to the cycling world, to get the full story, and he has cut that together with his original footage to make The Armstrong Lie.
The result is a mea culpa, a confession of guilt, from both Armstrong and Gibney.
Unfortunately, it is more efficient than powerful. An articulate outline of Armstrong’s career as cyclist and cheat, but through a confession that lacks remorse, focused more on throwing others under the bus. In fleshing out a story that we already know too well, Gibney might have righted a personal wrong, but it is the only revelation of note in the whole film.
‘The Armstrong Lie’ Movie Times
