The Racer (2020)

Directed by: Kieron J. Walsh | 93 minutes | comedy, drama | Actors: Louis Talpe, Matteo Simoni, Tara Lee, Iain Glen, Karel Roden, Timo Wagner, Sarah Carroll, Diogo Cid, Ward Kerremans, Paul Robert, Anthony Mairs, Eoin Byrne, Ozan Saygi, Sebastian Collet, Charles Sobry

In ‘The Racer’ (not to be confused with the Belgian ‘Coureur’ from 2020) by director Kieron J. Walsh we get an insight into the wonderful world of professional cycling. More specifically, we see how riders relate to each other between the stages. What their regime is and how they move in the hotel rooms, together with the team leader, doctor and soigneur. Very special, we see the three opening stages of the Tour de France from 1998, stages that were held in Ireland. A tour that would later become known as the ‘Le Tour de Dopage’, which saw the French Festina squad removed from the tour. The Dutch TVM team dismounted itself.

Because yes, the Tour and doping. Since the demask of multiple Tour winner Lance Armstrong, the sport has been trying to do everything it can to present itself as ‘clean’. Anyway, in this film blood doping is still taken en masse, generously administered by the masseur/soigneur Sonny McElhone (Iain Glen from “Game of Thrones”). We see ‘domestique’ (master servant) Dominic Chabol (Louis Talpe), an elderly rider, who is most likely facing his last job. He wants to burn one more time and perhaps receive the ultimate reward, the yellow jersey, after a stage win. We see how he has to get out of bed at night to make a few hours on the exercise bike, probably because otherwise he could be in danger of life (heart attack?) due to all the chemical additions to his ‘sports diet’. But we also see that he has doubts about his cycling career. Sometimes he expresses his longing for ordinary civilian life, a feeling that is reinforced when he has an affair with an Irish doctor, Lynn Brennan (Tara Lee).

In this fictional Tour, we see two highly rival teams, Sertossa and Austrange, both with a leader in the ranks who are expected to win the Tour. Dominic (‘Dom’) is mainly busy in the race to launch his Austrange leader, the Italian Lupo ‘Tartare’ Marino (Matteo Simoni), so that he can win the final sprint. Additional task: Dom has to calm down a hyperventilating Tartare almost every night. Yes, as a foreman, Dom has to make a lot of ends meet. There is also a young rider who does not want to follow the ‘program’. Well, it’s a choice or a split when the youngster is the last to enter a mountain stage. Still, he is not to be relented: “I’d rather lose clean than win with doping.”

As tough as Dom’s sacrificial role is, he still seems too much of a rider to throw in the towel, despite other mischief that comes his way during his stay in Ireland. It’s not for nothing that the film’s motto is ‘The race is won by the one who suffers the most’, a famous statement by ‘cannibal’ Eddy Merckx.

‘The Racer’ is probably mainly a film that will appeal to cycling enthusiasts. There is less to enjoy for the neutral viewer. Okay, the pulsating music score and the images of a rushing and -partly collapsing- platoon are impressive, but the game performance is a bit stark. In the more sensitive scenes, Talpe remains a bit flat. It is also not very credible to see him a lot in cafes between the stages. Iain Glen can be a little more frivolous. Simoni takes his role as an Italian aroused scold a bit too much. To quote a classic song: How far do you have to go? Because once you join the cycling mill, fleeing is almost no longer an option…