What a waste of my time!!!

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Focused documentary on cyclist Lance Armstrong and the substance use denial. Scant in the way of in-depth biography - marriages, kids, friends, nada. Couple of stills of him with his single mom. When he arrived on the cycling scene, doping was prevalent. Indeed, cycling in general suffers a long, sorry history of cheats and frauds. Nowadays, the money incentives are staggering. Few athletes - of any sport - remotely resemble normal humans. All professional sports seem to be as real as wrestling. I never liked Armstrong, though I empathized with his situation. Had he not joined all other contestants in steroids and blood tweaking, Lance would have been no one, another Damien Nazon.

First and foremost, I don't condone anything Lance Armstrong did. That being said, from a summarized look, we all live lives that are constructed for us. Some are mothers, others are painters, others are this or that. So with someone in high stakes sports at the most difficult and professional level, it's tough to judge anyone unless one's walked a day in their shoes/in their life.It can be understood that Armstrong had everything at stake, everything to lose on this lie, therefore it can be understood why he kept it going. And if any one of us were put in that situation where the stakes were just as high, who knows what we would do. It's easy to judge, but it's not easy to live a life where the stakes are so extreme.With that said, I never caught on to the whole Armstrong Phenomena, but if I was to learn one of my heroes such as Joel O'Steen was a liar, I would be crushed. So I dislike what Armstrong did extremely not for the lie itself or for what he felt he had to do, but for how the lie connected with so many people and how it hurt so many people. For that and that alone I dislike Armstrong very much.Because even though he did have cancer, he used it in connection with his one big lie to inspire hope, love, money, friendships, and infinite possibilities that anything can be beaten or achieved. His foundations raised so much money for a good cause, that it helped many children and adults fight their battles.The money his organization raised did so much good. We should be thankful that the organization saved a lot of lives with the money it raised. But the Armstrong lie shattered a lot of lives with people losing their inspiration and hope, and hating Armstrong. It also wasn't right how Armstrong defamed a lot of people to keep the lie going.It's really about the children though, where Armstrong is in the scenes with the kids with cancer, and with their parents. I can just imagine if those kids were still alive and how those parents must have felt that this man, Lance Armstrong, had the audacity to lead these parents and children on with this lie. Because the hope wasn't so much the cancer, it was that he was beating the odds with it with his cycling. And the cycling was the lie, and everything else was connected to that lie and went down the drain with that lie.Lance Armstrong understood what was at stake and he understood what would happen if he was caught and I respect at least the fact that he was completely honest with his truth about it finally, showing no remorse because showing any emotion would have been in vain anyway. However, it shows what a cold and in some way heartless human being Armstrong is in not breaking down and feeling bad for what he did. It's human to feel bad for living a lie. It's human to feel stress that what you're doing if you are caught hurt yourself and a lot people.But it seems Armstrong showed no remorse at all. He was living the incarnate of a slippery slope, of walking the line, the tightrope, in the end everything went down with his lie because it was all connected to it, from the cancer, to the hope he inspired, to the money, to the everything, that one lie became the lie to everything.At least Armstrong understood the fact that it's fair that he's getting what he deserves now. Maybe he's not ultimately an awful person, but he got caught in a lie that made him an awful person. I almost wish he would have never gotten caught for the good that his Cancer Organization did. Such a shame all around. Truly is. Shame on Lance for how he hurt and destroyed so many people.

Nice insight into a controversial sport star that's filled with arrogance and a false sense of self worth. Breaking the film down component by component it would read as: a main character that is actually a social noob, athletes 'cheat', people still don't want to admit that athletes are fake, and money pours in without doubt until PR starts looking shady. The saddest part of the documentary is the spectators (even the director himself's) praise of a man while, firstly, he is faking his superiority in cycling and second, he is just a cyclist and maybe shouldn't be praised as such a hero. Sometimes the hype around Lance Armstrong was as if he cured cancer. Therefore his lie was such a scandal, not because doping is such a big deal in the world away from competitive sports but because the people wanted to believe he was a super human and they believed their own disillusionment until it shattered like fragile glass. South Africa is home to a sports hero that shattered the hope of many when murder charges were brought against him. I don't think doping is the worst thing a sportsman could do. So Armstongs lie was overshadowed by Pistorius' violence in the eyes of many but that does not mean that Lance is not a less than impressive human being. Interestingly enough it was not the cheating that gives him this label but his malicious nature that goes above and beyond the world of cycling.Putting the 'cheating' aside, the documentary managed to showcase Lance in the most alarming way; a man unrepentant of the people he hurt to conceal his lie. An arrogant man that proceeded to relentlessly debase people, ruining their credibility all to protect his secret of inadequacy. The film itself began as a puff piece about the hero that is Lance Armstrong. By the time that original idea hit the cutting room the Armstrong story had taken a turn - which was not surprising with all the allegations over the years - and needed to find a new foundation. The largest missed opportunity was the director himself. As a fan, a man who started shooting the cyclist before the drama, why did he not then turn the camera on himself? A scandal is only as big as the amount of people that believed the lie. So Alex Gibney totally believed the lie. Why not address the other party in the Armstong scandal, the people? Maybe because the person lied to always wants to blame the liar for their own gullibility? Yes, the lie is horrid but many people believed the doping allegations, are these 'nonbelievers/haters' hurt by the truth? Probably not.So by the end the documentary focuses on Armstrong's downfall and his own personal inabilities to be a decent human being and totally forgoes everything that makes the 'cheating' an option - to be the best, to be a star, to be rich and a hero, to live the American dream, which can't happen if nobody pays attention. It's an interesting viewing, doesn't touch on real issues regarding the drive to be a sports hero, showcases a pretty shameful human being but it was topical at the time of release. I wouldn't rank it up there as some of Gibney's past work nor would i put it next to a great sport biography like "Senna".

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.