James Erskine: The Accidental Death of a Cyclist
I watched some of the mountain stages at the Tour de France this year, they were boring as nobody really tried anything. Froome was in total control. It was not like that when Marco Pantani was riding, when he reached the top of Alpe d’Huez, when he – ”Il Pirata” – said goodbye to the rest of the cyclists and rode on his own in his very special style, becoming the darling of not only fans from his own country but of all who loved Tour de France and Giro d’Italia and the stars of the show.
These magnificent performances are all well documented in this film that also has quite many interviews with Pantani (1970-2004) himself, with family, with Greg Lemond and Bradley Wiggins, former winners of the Tour, and others close to him. All to build the story of a great talent 10 years after his death, the man who became ”an instrument of a sporting system”, it is being said, part of an unhealthy culture.
The film digs into the scandals of the Festina Team and all that followed doping-wise, repeats again and again close-ups of needles, injections, blood and have reconstructed scenes of a doctor entering the door to Pantani’s hotel room to take those tests, that kicked him out of the Giro d’Italia in 1999, the year after he had won both this race and the Tour de France, still the only one to have done that.
This constant noisy hunt for effect and sensation ruins the film totally, cliché after cliché are presented, stupid split screens, are brought to the viewer with no respect for the legend, who died so tragically.
I watched the film on Netflix.
UK, 2014, 94 mins.
