Icarus is a 2017 documentary feature, produced by Netflix, directed by Bryan Fogel.
It begins with Bryan Fogel, an amateur cyclist, seeking to document the uselessness of drug tests in sports as administrated by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and other agencies. Fogel's idea is to himself go through a standard PED ("performance-enhancing drug") doping cycle, then document how he beat drug tests while competing. Fogel needs an expert to help him set up and administer his program of steroid use, so he contacts Don Catlin, the founder of the UCLA Olympics Lab. Catlin doesn't wish to get involved so he introduces Fogel to Grigori Rodchenkov, the director of Russia's Olympic drug-testing laboratory.
While Rodchenkov is in the process of helping Fogel with his PED program, German television breaks an explosive report of an extensive, state-sanctioned program in Russia designed to help the entire Russian Olympic team take PEDs and still pass drug tests. Rodchenkov is summarily fired by the government that had been giving him marching orders. Fearing arrest, he flees to the United States. Bryan Fogel's original "fool drug tests" scheme is forgotten as the film centers on the explosive scandal that implicates the Russian government all the way up to Vladimir Putin himself.
Tropes:
- All for Nothing: Rodchenkov is in witness protection in the United States, separated from his family, who themselves are being closely watched by the Russian government. He has no job. His family's assets are frozen. And the Russians get to compete in the 2016 Summer Games anyway. (After this film was made the Russians were banned from competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics, but that was a slap-on-the-wrist punishment as the athletes were still allowed to compete, just not under the Russian flag.)
- Art Shift: Mostly live-action, but animation is used to recount first Rodchenkov's stay in a mental hospital, and then the complex scheme by which the KGB used secret rooms and holes in walls to switch out tainted urine samples for clean ones.
- The Backwards Я: Used on posters for the film to evoke the connection to Russia. (That "backwards R" is actually not an R but a Cyrillic letter that is pronounced "ya".)
- Bath Suicide: Rodchenkov recounts how during one dark period in Russia he attempted this but was saved by his wife; he spent some time in a mental hospital afterwards.
- Book Ends: Stock Footage clips of Lance Armstrong and Marion Jones both fervently denying PED use, claims which were later shown to be lies, are used at the beginning of the film and the end.
- Brief Accent Imitation: Bryan Fogel perfectly nails Rodchenkov's Russian accent while recounting a phone conversation to his friend.
- Call-Back: Thomas Bach, president of the IOC, is shown giving an impassioned speech about the purity of sport and how athletes should play clean. The same clip is shown again in a far more bitter light near the end, right after Bach has given the Russians a free pass into the 2016 Summer Olympics despite the WADA recommendation that they should all be banned.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Vladimir Putin of course isn't interviewed and doesn't come into contact with Grigory or Bryan, but when Grigory's associates die and Russian state television airs a phonecall between Grigory and his sister, it's clear that Putin is NOT happy.
- Icarus Allusion: The parallel of Icarus to Olympic athletes cheating to improve performance is obvious, but there's also a parallel to Dr. Rodchenkov daring to expose the Russian doping program, and getting his life destroyed in return.
- The Ken Burns Effect: Used very sparingly with most of the stills, but one can often see some very slight zooming. Then there's a very quick and dramatic zoom in on a picture of Putin during a sequence that recounts the chain-of-command in the Russian government which organized the steroid plot.
- Malignant Plot Tumor: Initially, Dr. Rodchenkov seems to be a supporting character in Fogel's expose-bad-drug-tests movie, and the comments about Russian doping are background detail. Then, after the Russian doping scandal bursts, Rodchenkov and his story take over the film.
- Professor Guinea Pig: Bryan Fogel seeks to document how steroids enhance performance by going on a PED regimen. Ironically this fails as Fogel does worse on his second time in the mountain biking race, after he doped up.
- Shout-Out:
- Rodchenkov says that his favorite book is Nineteen Eighty-Four and he is shown reading it. Mention is made of the three stages of Winston Smith's re-education, the third, "Acceptance", coming at the end of the movie after the pious talk of the IOC is shown to be hypocrisy and the Russians get to participate despite the crimes that Rodchenkov revealed.
- Very popular Soviet-era cartoon Nu, Pogodi! is shown briefly during a montage dramatizing Rodchenkov's institutionalization.
- Stock Footage: Loads—lots of Olympic competition, Vladimir Putin denying that his country is up to its neck in steroids, clips of Lance Armstrong lying in interviews, and more.
- Talking Heads: Various Olympic drug testing folks are interviewed. Dick Pound says that a cheating program like the ones the Russians are alleged to have organized would destroy the integrity of sport. Don Catlin of the UCLA drug-testing program is forced to admit that Lance Armstrong beat his drug tests fifty times.
