352. Time Trial; movie review

TIME TRIAL
Cert 18
81 mins
BBFC advice: Contains very strong language

I am a newsman. I have spent a career either digging up stories or helping others to unearth them.
Sadly, I am not much of an artist. I learned the skill of imagining a front page but I can't say that I designed them nor did I take photographs.
I have always been more interested in the meat of a tale rather than its periphery.
Therefore, I was disappointed by Finlay Pretsell's Time Trial because I expected it to shine a new light on reformed cycling drug cheat David Millar.
Instead, it is a fly-on-the-wall, quite arty documentary which follows Millar in what transpires to be his final season.
The problem is that, by this time, has become an embittered veteran who clearly elicits little joy from cycle racing.
Therefore, he earns his movie an 18-rating by littering it with the strongest language as he complains about fellow competitors, race organisers and the weather.
Sprinkled throughout the film are clips of Millar's past in which he scored considerable success but it makes little attempt to contextualise this so I couldn't work out whether this came before or after his drug ban.
Instead, it lingers long over his more recent efforts, taking on race after race and coming nowhere, spending much of his time sitting among the crowd of riders, cursing.
Millar who is seen by many as a leader in the fight against drugs in cycling, comes across as a man who is stifled by bitterness rather than a pioneer.
He says that he wants to continue competing at the highest level and yet seems neither to have the aptitude to do so nor the enthusiasm.
It is as if Pretsell was expecting triumph out of adversity, didn't get what he wanted, and just made the film anyway.
Sure, Time Trial demonstrates how difficult it is to be a professional cyclist because of its intimate camera work but it failed to glean an empathy for its subject.
And that meant that I disengaged.

Reasons to watch: Intimate view of road race cycling
Reasons to avoid: Doesn't tell as much of the Millar story as I had hoped

Laughs: None
Jumps: None
Vomit: Yes
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 4.5/10

Director quote - Finlay Pretsell: "I have this obsession that’s been around for many years, from the day I thought I could maybe make films, to capture the experience of being in a big, professional road cycling race."

The big question - Why was drug-taking so prevalent in cycling?

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