3.5 BILLION people watch the Tour de France every year. This is according to organizers. Let that sink in. 3.5 billion in 190 countries. Is this an exaggeration? Gotta be. If you had told me 3.5 billion was the total of all the people in the history of the Earth who had even heard of the Tour de France, I’d still think you were exaggerating. For one thing, I’m unconvinced the globe’s most populous continent has any interest in the race at all. Ever seen an Asian in the tour? No, seriously. I’ve watched several tours. Plenty of Europeans. The occasional American. An Aussie or two, I think. Africans? Asians? Good luck.
All of that is irrelevant except that it works against the mockumentary Tour de Pharmacy, a comedic parody of the 1982 Tour de France, in which only five competitors remained after all the blood dopers were tossed from the event. Oh, did we mention? Bicycle racing has a serious problem with performance enhancement-type cheating. While I found the premise and several of the details here hilarious, the genius of the satire was ultimately undermined by the fact that aside from dudes on bikes riding through sparse country roads, it really didn’t look like the Tour de France…it looked like a bunch of dudes riding bikes through sparse country roads. This is a huge contrast to 7 Days in Hell, in which the same group of jokers effectively mocked Wimbledon. Who would have guessed it was easier to feign the most famous tennis venue in the world than a race involving a bunch of dudes riding bikes through sparse country roads?
As has been well documented in films like Icarus, professional biking has suffered immensely from cheating. Tour de Pharmacy sought to cash-in humorously, reviewing the 1982 “tour” in which most of the riders were lost long before the final stage at the Champs-Élysées in Paris. At the opening of the film, Italian hill climber Juju Pepe (Orlando Bloom) breaks away from the pack, relieves himself while at the apex, and dies of a heart attack while descending. The interviewees were quick to point out: 1) he rode another 12 kilometres before anyone noticed he was dead and 2) he died with his dick out. While not quite as crude as 7 Days in Hell, Tour de Pharmacy made sure to stretch the bounds of civility and good taste in the name of humor.
The overriding joke in this short is that Finnish UCI President Ditmer Klerken (Kevin Bacon) offered to pay off personal debt by promising that no biker who sent him money would be tested for performance enhancement drugs. By the time the truth leaked, the tour was down to the five bikers who didn’t send money: Juju Pepe, Marty Hass (Andy Samberg) –the “pride” of Nigeria, Gustav Ditters (John Cena)-who looks awesome in bikewear, Slim Robinson (Daveed Diggs) – the barrier-breaking nephew of Jackie Robinson, and Adrian Baton (Freddie Highmore) – who is actually a woman. There’s a lot to unpack in that line-up, and this is the joy of the short.
In addition to the players, the story is told in retrospect by some of their “older” versions like Jeff Goldblum sill wearing his silly Marty Hass bike hat, and Danny Glover in a Daveed Diggs wig. Like 7 Days in Hell, Tour de Pharmacy did not lack for humor. One of the running gags in the film is the deliberately shadowed “anonymous” voice-cloaked tipster cluing us into the illegalities. As his silhouette becomes easier to see with every cutback, we aren’t surprised to recognize Lance Armstrong –whom I give credit for having a sense of humor about being the greatest cheater in sports history.
Do you ever wonder how Lance Armstrong makes money these days? I do. Who would employ him, and why? I mean, would you buy anything from this man? Who you employ him for his knowledge on any subject other than blood doping? Is there anything positive you get out of boasting “Lance Armstrong is one of our shipping clerks?” I suppose if I had a company that needed to make relatively small physical deliveries daily across a 100-mile long velodrome and motorized vehicles were not an option, Lance would be my guy. Anything shy of that and I see his career similar to that of Eric or Don Jr. once Trump is out of office and in jail…WTF value are you to anybody?
As stated above, my biggest complaint of Tour de Pharmacy is not the exaggerations, nor the silliness, nor the nudity, nor the color/sex barriers broken. All of that was fun. The biggest problem is it doesn’t look like the Tour de France. For one thing, where are the teams? Tour de France is a team sport with uniforms and pace cars and coaches and repair crews. None of that is present. Also, where’s the yellow jersey? I mean, that could have led to some pretty good humor, “Of course, in those days there was not only the yellow jersey to denote the tour leader and the polka dot jersey for the best hill climber, but also the straightjacket to designate the tour’s craziest/most reckless rider and, of course, the Black Sox jersey to mark the best cheater in the group.” I see all sorts of possibilities stemming from jersey indicator subplots alone.
Tour de Pharmacy was fun, but imho, not in league with its big brother 7 Days in Hell. OTOH, heck, if you’re so pressed for sports in this world of coronavirus right now that you’ll take amateur mock sports, it’s an enjoyable ride.
Uncovered cheating creates talk
And penalties from here to Iraq
Prison, I could handle
The worst part of scandal
Is Andy Samberg might show up to mock
Rated TV-MA, 39 Minutes
Director: Jake Szymanski
Writer: Murray Miller
Genre: Sillysports
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The sporting desperate
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Actual Tour de France organizers
