Icarus
Icarus
| 26 July 2017 (USA)
Icarus Trailers

While investigating the furtive world of illegal doping in sports, director Bryan Fogel connects with renegade Russian scientist Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov—a pillar of his country’s “anti-doping” program. Over dozens of Skype calls, urine samples, and badly administered hormone injections, Fogel and Rodchenkov grow closer despite shocking allegations that place Rodchenkov at the center of Russia’s state-sponsored Olympic doping program.

Reviews
GrimPrecise

I'll tell you why so serious

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Crwthod

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

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Fleur

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

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Cristal

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

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crigby-37057

As someone that studies exercise science and enjoys sports this documentary is fantastic! I complete eye opener in to the world of doping and corruption at the highest level!

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azureceo

The movie started out like any other documentary, a cyclist ( Bryan Fogel) wanting to tell a story of how someone can cheat the system. So he hires the best of the best (Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov) , the director of Russia's national anti-doping laboratory. This movie goes ways beyond sports or or sport doping. It is a gripping moment by moment of events leading up to Russia being banned from the 2018 Olympics. It should be an eye opener for anyone who minimizes hoe evil Putin is. Winner of the 2018 Academy Award for best documentary

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milomirjokovic

This film is no brain propaganda... just a zero... So unilateral, insidious and unintelligent to show one commonly known fact that is present in all sports federations, and I would say the firstly in the US, so that all this dirt would flow to one side ... funny. But this is a story in which the average brainwashed viewer can only believe.

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paul2001sw-1

Film-maker and amateur cyclist Bryan Fogel had a not-very-interesting idea for a movie. He would show how doping could improve a cyclist's performance - and how anti-doping labs were hopeless at catching the cheats - by using himself as a subject. The first part of 'Icarus' isn't so good, to be honest - Fogel is neither particularly charming nor informative as a character is his own film, and the narrative is spoiled when, in spite of taking all the drugs, he doesn't manage to bring home the bacon when racing. But for the second part of his mission, he had sought the help of the retired head of the U.S. anti-doping laboratories, who had some ideas about how athletes has dodged his testing regimen. When he got cold feet about being involved in the film, he suggested an alternative collaborator: Grigory Rodchenkov, the current head of the offical Russian laboratory.From the start, Rodchenkov seems to have a strange attitude to the project. You might thing he would be reluctant to show how his day-job is useless; instead, he approaches the project with a strange mixture of enthusiasm and business-as-usual. And then, as the film was being made, a scandal broke over his head. It turned out that, as well as running the lab, he was routinely helping Russian athletes to cheat his own test. The documentary project, as it happened, perfectly mirrored his normal working life. Quite why he was willing to participate, and draw attention to himself, is unclear; perhaps he just considered himself invulnerable. After all, he was usuallly not freelancing, but working at the direction of senior figures in the Russian state. Which made the scandal uniquely dangerous for him.The ending: Rodchenkov flees to the United States. He aids the authorities, but is separated from his family, and has perhaps good reason to fear for his own life. Russia gets banned from the Olympics, but the decision is at least partially rescinded; power and money trump justice. The film has a decided anti-Russian slant, and with good reason, but my fear is that the athletes from most other countries are little better (after all, Fogel was orginally inspired by the Lance Armstrong story), even if there's less in the way of official backing. In the end, the bizarre and flamboyant character of Rodchenkov makes the film, and a more interesting film surely than the one Fogel was expecting to make. But you couldn't call it a happy story.

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