“The Racer” (2020) Review
“The Racer” is a demystifying glimpse into the ‘win or die’ world of competitive cycling. In 1998, while the Football World Cup descended on France, the Le Tour De France shifted the first three stages of the race to Ireland. Director/co-writer Kieron J. Walsh and writing team Ciaran Cassidy and Sean Cook take us into the fictionalised trenches of the tour. “Domestique” Dominique Chabol (Louis Talpe) is 39 years of age. With high expectations for success and contract uncertainty, he must be willing to do anything and sacrifice everything to remain relevant.
There’s something foundational to any tale of cycling on screen; a commitment to the physical reality of the competitors. “The Racer” especially lead Louis Talpe, do a phenomenal job of showing lengths of physical torture that each rider must put themselves in, to even “show up” to that starting line - let alone be competitive. Talpe’s performance hinges on his ability to reflect his turmoil through his body.
The aesthetics of “The Racer” are at their best in the inventive ways that it surrenders to recreating familiarity of the TV coverage of the race to reorient where we are at any given time in the story. Walsh’s camera pivots to reflect the inner fury of the characters - taking their body and mind beyond the limit day-after-day. There are moments when Chabol (Talpe) is awoken by a terrifying alarm in the night, signalling a rapidly decreasing heart rate; a by-product of blood-doping. Chabol leaps onto a stationary bike next to his bed and begins peddling. With each revolution, the suffocating fog clears and he must peddle until his body regains its rhythm. In one moment, director Walsh positions the camera, tilted behind Chabol. He is appraising his hunched body like an undulating mountain. Sweating beads and catches the light. Walsh’s gaze is one of awe and a kind of alien appreciation.
Iain Glen (Game of Throne/Titans) and Karel Roden (Bourne Supremacy/Hellboy) play ‘Sonny’ McElhone and Viking respectively. This perfect casting for the elder ‘lifers’ in the sport is so crucial to the success of the film. Their exact manner conveys the fleeting, ugly reality of being a high performing cycling team. They never have to say they’ve seen it all; rather every glance defused fight and every time these men administer an illegal performance enhancer like they’re giving someone aspirin - it drips off them.
Like it or not, international sports are fundamentally tainted by an underground industry to gain an undetectable competitive edge. “The Racer” accepts the world view that shifted in after the tectonic awakening that occurred in the exposure of the Lance Armstrong doping revelations and that periodically reminds us to this day with Academy Award-Winning documentaries like “Ikarus”.
This attitude reflects in the characters; there’s no etiquette, manners, true brotherhood unless you’re winning. Their relationships (deaths in the family), feelings and emotional state of their teammates (insults fly), their peers (fights break out); they devalue everything except victory. Writers Walsh, Cassidy and Cook ride the audience through the euphoric celebrations to venom-filled multilingual tantrums. It’s hard to remember other sporting films where there’s a fluidity with the approach to language. These eclectic, multilingual teammates find themselves communicating in whatever reflexive tongue required to one another.
When “The Racer” stays in the established reality, it’s compelling; the dramatic conflict feels organic. As soon as the there are detours that feel contrived - teammate fights over their treatment of a female team Doctor, or the illness of a mentor, or a merry dance with an anti-doping body - “The Racer” loses momentum.
