Ben Foster stars as controversial cyclist Lance Armstrong in Stephen Frear’s kinetic docudrama charting the disgraced former champion’s inexorable rise and subsequent fall following a high profile doping scandal.

Back in 1993, a young and little known American cyclist, competing in his first Tour de France, is being interviewed by Irish sports journalist David Walsh (Chris O’Dowd), and showing ego and ambition to burn. By 1998, however, Armstrong’s career had been on hold as he fought and came through a battle with testicular cancer. With the disease in remission, he was determined to return and conquer the Tour at all costs. Employing a pharmaceutical regimen developed by Italian physician Michele Ferrari (Guillaume Canet), Armstrong put together a team of cyclists with a seemingly flawless strategy for winning — and for passing drug tests. Too good to be true? You bet it was. While Armstrong's fans and an adoring governing body applauded his inspiring feats, Walsh and his newspaper engendered formidable hostility and spurred litigation by posing the accusations that no one else wanted to hear.

With race cinematography that will take your breath away and an excellent script from screenwriter John Hodge (Trainspotting) this is an intelligent treatment of a subject still embroiled in controversy. A scathing analysis of a culture that fiercely protects its heroes, that is both exhilarating and unnerving, pulling us inside the fascinating, complicated psyche of an intensely competitive athlete, for whom the act of winning really was in his blood.

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