Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Tour de Pharmacy is the greatest movie of all time

Tour de Pharmacy is Andy Samberg's second hilarious 30 for 30 style HBO mocumentary, the first being 7 Days in Hell, that knocks it out of the fucking park with raunchy humor, faded sports stars, and big name comedians. While 7 Days in Hell lampoons the 1980s and 90s tennis rivalries of John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg as well as Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras, Tour de Pharmacy takes on doping in cycling that has tarnished the careers of pretty all within the sport's ranks in the same way that Fred Armisen and Bill Hader's Documentary Now! pokes fun at Grey Gardens with the episode "Sandy Passage". 

The film gives a fictitious account of the 1982 Tour de France where all but five cyclist are disqualified after Orlando Bloom's character, JuJu Peppie, causes a massive pileup following he attempts to grab the boob of a female spectator. This causes a free-for-all melee which climaxes with John Cena's character, Gustav Ditters, also one the "Fab Five", more on that in a minute, ripping off a dude's unitard and picking him up around his shoulders, screaming like a wild man. This ultimate leads to an investigation where it is determined that Union Cycliste Internationale president Ditmer Klerken, played by Kevin Bacon, took $50,000 bribes from cyclists in order to skip their drug screenings. The only athletes to not partake in the bribes--Adrian Baton (Freddie Highmore), Ditters, Marty Hass (Samberg), Peppie, and Slim Robinson (Daveed Diggs).

All the members of the Fab Five all have their thing. Baton is a woman pretending to be a man. Ditters has suddenly gotten huge. Hass is a white American who went to college in Nigeria and now claims the whole continent of Africa, Peppie dies on his bike because of the many drugs he has taken (and leads the pack despite being dead), and Robinson (nephew of Jackie Robinson) is determined to break the color barrier in some sport but by that point has very few to choose from. All are also suspected of taking PEDs.

Pros:Turns a pretty serious subject into a pretty funny farce. Fantastic cast. Light and colorful, everything I ask for from an 80s period piece. It's super short (so just the right length).

Cons: Lance Armstrong. No. We aren't there yet, dude. Pretty silly in a way that could be irritating. Parts drag a bit.

Notes:  The easiest chuckles the film gets are from the present day versions of the remaining Fab Five which are all just funny visual gags. Basically, these are people that could play their dads (or mom) on a normal program. In the contemporary interviews you get Danny Glover wearing a fake afro playing the Robinson character (who SPOILER ultimately won the race), Jeff Goldblum playing Samberg, Dolph Lundgren playing the older Cena, and Julia Ormond playing the female one.

The cameos are nice little surprises. In addition to the ones already mentioned we see J.J. Abrams, Phylicia Rashad from The Cosby Show (she knows something about people tarnishing their images and what have you), Mike Tyson who explains his first love was cycling, and Chris Webber (the former Michigan Wolverine that was part of a different "Fab Five"). And also there was Lance Armstrong.

Ok. We have to talk about Lance. He is in this. He plays a huge role in it. He is very funny. His presence sort of ruins the movie. Hear me out. It's not that dude denied taking drugs, it's that he came at everyone who accused him so hard and forced his teammates to also take drugs and continually lie about it, or get his wrath. Not ready to see this guy joking around about being such a huge dick and not being sorry about it.

Overall, though, the movie is solid but I was glad it ended when it did. As long as Samberg keeps putting these things out, I'll keep on watching them.

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