One review calls it an SNL sketch that goes on for too long, and yeah, if you take out the swearing and graphic nudity, you could have seen an abbreviated version of this on an episode of SNL. That doesn’t mean it should have been a run-of-the-mill sketch, though. I think this 40-minute mockumentary format is quite effective in making some truly funny jabs at the doping culture of sports like cycling (and getting Lance Armstrong to play a shamefaced talking head version of himself was a stroke of genius). Everything about this is silly—we even have Freddie Highmore playing Julia Ormond’s younger self as a Frenchwoman disguised as a man—and the jokes are lobbed at the velocity of gunfire so that you’re not done chuckling before something even dumber comes along. But the cast is all game, donning ridiculous ‘80s wigs and exaggerated European accents, so what more could you want?
That was a rhetorical question, by the way.
The Lonely Film Critic 