See It Now

Conditions: Good, slightly ominous

Pants On Fire

So in the aftermath of 7-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong’s long confession with Oprah, is redemption on the way for the fallen sporting icon?  Happily, no.

After the confession, the lawsuits. Lance Armstrong's extended appearance on the Oprah Winfrey network, in which the man stripped of seven Tour de France wins finally admitted to doping, has opened him up to several multi-million dollar legal challenges.

According to reports, the US government may join a "whistleblower" lawsuit launched by Armstrong's former colleague, Floyd Landis, on the grounds that Armstrong, while riding for the US Postal Service team, defrauded the American taxpayer. The Sunday Times is set to try to claw back nearly £1m in damages and costs that Armstrong was awarded after he sued it over allegations of doping. A Texas-based sports marketing firm is also suing Armstrong to get back millions of dollars in bonuses it paid out to the cyclist.

Meanwhile, the International Cycling Union is urging Armstrong to pay back his prize money, and even Australian government officials are reportedly mulling over going to the courts to get back hefty fees paid for appearances in the country from 2009 to 2011. Finally, and perhaps most seriously, Armstrong's confession has opened up the prospect that he might be prosecuted for perjury after previously testifying under oath that he had not taken drugs.

- guardian.co.uk/sport

Look I don’t mean to pound on the guy, but a few hours with Oprah does not wipe out the years and years of deception and defiance that he’s put up here.  I don’t really know what he was hoping to get with this interview, but if he was looking to be welcomed back it ain’t going to happen.  Lance just isn’t a likeable guy.  He was an admirable guy, to be sure, but the key word there is “was”.



Film Review: Jack Reacher

See, by not reading any of the books I’m totally unaffected by the controversy over the 6 foot tall Jack Reacher being played by the decidedly-not 6 foot Tom Cruise.  Cruise has done this before anyway, both fully realising a physical character from a book and playing a tough guy.  And ultimately that is all the fabled Jack Reacher is, a tough guy who makes enemies very quickly and figures out mysteries.  And the current mystery concerns an ex-army sniper who one morning decides to kill a bunch of seemingly random people.  Once arrested he writes down Jack’s name before being beaten into a coma, so up Jack pops to try and shed some light on the subject.

Jack is a bit of a nomad.  Having quit the army, he lives decidely off the grid, but he knows the accused shooter.  He’s recruited by the lawyer and some investigations later is starting to see that there’s more to this than some nut with a gun.  A conspiracy lurks beneath it all and Jack blunders his way into it, before ultimately shooting his way back out of it.  Along the way people will get crunched, cars will get smashed, and a number of grimaces will be exhanged.

While the story itself is decidely ordinary (I think Ashley Judd has done this kind of thing a few times before), what is refreshing here is how the film has been directed by Christopher McQuarrie.  Knowing when to be subtle, when to be graceful, and when to turn the heat up is a complicated and difficult thing, and McQuarrie really delivers a solid film here, along with a first-class car chase.  Cruise knows how to do this kind of thing in his sleep, and gives us a new franchise anti hero, and while the story - and particularly the ending - is fairly old hat, it’s been delievered in a stylish and very poised way.  Three muscle cars out of five.


- Peace out