The Racer

The script is undercooked and flits between formats (Is it a romance? A thriller? A sports movie?) without settling on one.

There is some nice insight into cycling-team practices, but overall The Racer lacks sufficient nuance, specificity and originality to nab the yellow jersey.

What the film does very well is show how doping became so normalised.

A gruelling treatment of compromised glamour.

This is a sad film about the limits of the body and the rationalizations we can make when we sacrifice our integrity.

A morality tale/drama combo with intelligence and style and a muscular performance from Louis Talpe, it suffers from reflecting the distant central character's reluctance to engage.

'The Racer' makes no qualms about how brutal and how unglamorous the sport of cycling is. If anything, it revels in it.

The film moves effortlessly between the thrills of the race and the agony suffered to take a team to the winners' circle...

The Racer has especially gifted performances for an indie.

There's nothing streamlined about the lumps of dialogue that give us background information on the tour and updates on the hero's feelings.