18 Dec 2020
The Racer is based on a weird knot in Tour de France history. In 1998, the world’s most famous bike race held its initial stages (the
Grand Départ in Tour parlance) in Ireland for the first time, amidst a widespread doping scandal that rocked the sport pre-Lance Armstrong. Kieron J. Walsh’s film takes this potentially engaging context and squanders it, finding some interesting texture around cycling procedures but syringing too much melodrama into the film’s system, rendering it a blunt, predictable sports flick.
Time and again the drama becomes overwrought.
The Racer centres on Dom Chabol (Louis Talpe), a legendary 38-year-old