The thing about sports movies is that you don't even have to care a lick about the sport to like them if they're done well enough.
I find baseball interminably dull but love a lot of baseball movies. I can't stand pro wrestling -- starting with the fact that it's not even a sport -- but you'd have to have your face planted in the mat not to recognize the greatness of "The Wrestler." Ditto for boxing, basketball, hockey, car racing -- it's the human element that makes it sings, not what happens on the playing field.
I'll add "The Racer" to this list. This well-done Irish cycling film looks at the 1998 Tour de France from the perspective of a fictional racer. This was before the big doping scandals broke, which as with baseball I think everyone really knew about but were content to wink-wink-nudge-nudge for the time being.
It was a pivotal moment for the sport. The American team was about to reel off seven straight wins and cycling became a big thing for awhile, but I couldn't care less.
It's boring as hell to watch, the outfits people wear look ridiculous (particularly when transposed on a fleshy suburban dad who just paid more for a bicycle than his first car because he saw a Livestrong commercial) and like every good American I can't stand having to dodge around them on a perfectly good road that was designed for cars, as God and Henry Ford intended.
So I'll admit I went into "The Racer" without high hopes. I'm pleased to say I found a smartly crafted, authentic look at the sport from the inside out.
Our hero is Dom Chabol, played by Louis Talpe in a very reserved, tense performance. Dom is a Flemish support rider on a very good international team with hopes of winning the tour. He's lean as a starved wolf and has much of the same look in his eye.
Dom is a strong rider who usually leads the pack, until the very end when he swings aside to let his lead rider, who has been drafting behind him to conserve energy, sprint to the finish line. At age 39 he is already past the age when most racers hang it up, but he's always looking for that proverbial one more year. His job is to shepherd the younger riders, set an example and get out of the way when it's time to win.
Ian Glen plays Sonny, a former racer who is now the team trainer and, unofficially, its chief of pharmaceuticals. His hotel room is practically a hospital ICU, with blood bags and pills and a refrigerator full of injectibles. He pumps the top riders full of drugs before each stage of the race, then rubs them down afterward.
Sonny and Dom have a close bond, as their time as riders overlapped 20 years earlier. It's not hard to see that Dom looks at Sonny and sees a future that scares him a little, but one he's gradually warming up to. Both genuinely love the sport and will do anything to stay in it, in any capacity.
The film, directed by Kieron J. Walsh from a script by himself, Ciaran Cassidy and Sean Cook, takes a surprisingly hands-off approach to moralizing about doping. It simply accepts it as the practice of the day. Your competitor is doing it, so if your team doesn't you're putting them at a disadvantage.
Dom, as a product of this world, takes it in as the everyday business of cycling. Even if it's causing his heart rate to drop into a crawl at night, awakening him like a suffocating hammer on his chest.
Tara Lee plays Lynn, a young doctor working the Tour who falls in with Dom. She looks at this man, with his scars and stoic facade, and is intrigued. Later she'll find out more about the gritty underside of the sport and grow disenchanted.
I liked Matteo Simoni as Lupo, the egotistical lead rider of their team. He's the sort of guy who's happy to spread the credit around for a win -- as long as it's him wearing the yellow jersey designating the Tour stage winner -- but when the chips are down his fingers are pointing outward in blame. A braggart in public and a nervous wreck who needs Dom to calm his pre-race panic attacks, Lupo hasn't enough sense to recognize that Dom's the stronger racer.
Timo Wagner plays Stefano, a newbie team member who is proud to ride clean, and Karel Roden is Viking, the mercenary team owner. Viking is a real piece of work, not necessarily evil but ready to cut anybody's throat he needs to in order to win. He's implied a contract for Dom next season but not yet signed it, and we sense Viking enjoys tagging him a long.
"The Racer" is sobering yet boasts zippy storytelling, with nary a dull moment. Dom is a team player who seems like his heart is always ready to burst out of his chest -- figuratively, and literally. And yet, like everyone, he yearns for his little moment in the sun. What would you do to get yours?
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sIQIwczfE4[/embed]