Icarus (2017)

This is one of the more compelling documentaries I've seen. It starts off kind of slow, and the first 30 minutes you're wondering if you really want to keep going and what people have been talking about. In the first 30 minutes you watch as the director, Bryan Fogel, engages in an effort to see if he can increase his own performance in a pro-am cycling race by doping. There's interesting aspects about this period, specifically how willing the people he contacts seem to be to help him dope without getting caught. These are people who have made careers of catching dopers and yet they seem perfectly willing to help Vogel, with the limited exception that they can't do it for the documentary or it might jeopardize their reputations. Eventually Bryan gets referred to Grigory Rodchenkov, head of RUSADA (Russian Anti-Doping Agency) and the alleged architect of the Russian state sponsored doping program for several olympic games. Grigory gladly advises Vogel, at one point Vogel's Dr. seems to want to cease offering assistance because Rochenkov is taking his doping to a new level. This is where this documentary starts to get interesting. We quickly learn more and more about Russian doping. We are unwitting witnesses to the Russian doping scandal in 2018. We watch as Rodchenkov gets more and more caught up in the scandal and his life seems to be in jeopardy. This really was a great film with many twists and turns, compelling subject matter, etc. For me this is 9 out of 10 stars.