Sundance 2017 – Icarus

Icarus is one of those stories that if I didn’t see it for myself, I wouldn’t have believed it to be true.  This is one of the wildest documentaries I have ever seen.  It starts off as a sports documentary documenting performance enhancing drugs in the Olympics and other sports and evolves into an espionage thriller, similar to that of a John le Carré novel.

Icarus starts off as a look into P.E.D. use in sports.  Our director, Bryan Fogel, an avid and competitive biker, decides he is going to use P.E.Ds and do the same methods disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong used during his Tour de France testing to see if he can show how flawed the system is by testing negative.  However, when working with Russian scientist and Olympic tester, Grigory Rodchenkov, things take a hard left turn, and the film soon becomes about Grigory’s personal survival as the Russian Olympic testing facility gets shut down and the world finds out Russia has been cheating in the Olympics.

The drastic shift in focus of the film works incredibly well.  The first half, where we see Bryan taking the P.E.Ds and how it is affecting his performance in cycling is really compelling and actually could act as its own movie.  It is shot and edited at a rapid pace like all sports.  We see the meticulous and ridiculous process of what it takes to use these drugs, how many shots are done a day, the bruising, the bleeding, and we also see the performance increase and the confidence in Bryan go up.  This part ends after Bryan finishes his biggest race of the year and he places a lot lower than he expected and anticipated.  This brings up the question, is it the drugs or the athlete that makes the performance?  I would love to see that subject looked into more.

However, when the movie switches to Grigory’s story is when things get real wild and real interesting.  Having worked for the Russian Olympic testing center, where all Russian athletes are tested for P.E.Ds, Grigory informs us how many Russian athletes have used P.E.Ds and what Russian government officials would do to ensure they all tested negative.  This information puts Grigory in hot water with Russia, which causes him to flee from Russia and come to the U.S. and stay with Bryan.  The things than unfold after Grigory comes to the U.S., like the deep investigation from the World Anti-Doping Agency, the banning of Russian athletes from Olympic sports, and people Grigory worked with directly dying because “heart issues” even though they didn’t have any, is spellbinding.  You honestly can’t believe this is a thing that happened and how it ends is unbelievable.

In Greek mythology, Icarus is a story about failure at the hands hubris as he, Icarus, refused to listen to his father and flew too close to the sun, causing his wings to melt and to crash.  In this, Grigory flew too close to the sun, causing his life to change forever.  Icarus is a gold standard for how to tell too-crazy-to-be-true stories.

MY RATING – 3.5/4

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