Just perfect...

A lot of fun.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Lance Armstrong finally comes clean about his drug use after years of denial to the public. He was an American hero and cycling icon who defeated cancer once. In this candid and honest documentary, Alex Gibney doesn't come with kid gloves to a man who has lied and deceived him and many others. There were other cyclists who paid the price for doping but not Armstrong. When he finally comes clean, he tries again the for the next Tour De France and proves that he can compete without the drugs in his system. But that's too little too late. The damage has been done to his image and others as well. There are times when you're sympathetic to Lance Armstrong and sometimes not. He is complex human being. He still is worth millions of dollars but he's banned from cycling world events. He has become a pariah in the sport that he made famous.

When a documentary draws a conclusion, it can force a reviewer to take a side, which in my case it did. The filmmaker seemed determined to right some perceived wrong, by "proving" Lance Armstrong was a bad person. That slant sullies the film.Like many athletes during a time that people will likely refer to some day as the "enhancement period" one MUST take into consideration that the MAJORITY of athletes broke these rules. It was the norm, at that time. Armstrong may have cheated and he may have pressured others to do the same, but during the decade when this was commonplace, he was the best man at the task.The film feels vindictive and biased, and as such it is a poor documentary. Period.

Cheating to achieve victory in a sport becomes if not completely irrelevant, at least secondary. If the path we choose to achieve that goal is vicious and tends to hurt other people, that is what becomes real.As we can understand from this documentary and Armstrong's words and actions, if a lie is told enough times, during enough time, with the strong conviction that it will persuade the others, it will eventually persuade ourselves. It will become true. We will be in denial.This is an enjoyable film both visually (because it has cycling footage) and intellectually (because it kept me wondering about the necessity of its existence).

This documentary film isn't going to give you the answers to the questions we all have. Why did he come back in 2009? Was he really riding clean in 2009? How did he manage to hide the truth for so long? I went into this film hoping for answers to some of these questions, I didn't get them, but what I did get was a riveting documentary film. By the end of this film you'll have more unanswered questions than you went in with.The first half of this film is just information anyone following this story already knew. Although the interviews with Dr. Ferrari are particularly interesting. It's the second half of this film that makes it a great art documentary. The footage taken during Lance's comeback in 2009, in conjunction with the interviews following the doping revelations make for discomforting viewing. You can tell even in the post-revelation interviews that he is still manipulating, still telling half-truths. I came away with the impression he's spent so long lying he doesn't know the truth himself. There is certainly a lot more to this story than has been told.I left the cinema with this uncomfortable feeling in my gut. A feeling that there are no great sporting heroes, just people who haven't been caught yet, perhaps that feeling in my gut is disillusionment.