Tour de Pharmacy (2017)

(On Cable TV, July 2017) After the relatively successful 7 Days in Hell, HBO is back with Tour de Pharmacy, another 45-minute comedy special tackling a pseudo-historical sports event—in this case, the 1982 Tour de France, in which so many athletes were disqualified for doping that only five participants remained … and special participants they were. A mixture of talking heads reflecting upon the event and low-budget mockumentary footage, Tour de Pharmacy is in line with the inspired lunacy of 7 Days in Hell: the humour is often absurd, taking off in tangents whenever it feels like it. A bunch of good comedians help sell the results, from Jeff Goldblum to John Cena to Andy Samberg (who also produced and whose signature on the result is obvious) to Will Forte to Orlando Bloom to Maya Rudolph and many, many others. As you’d expect from a modern R-rated comedy, there is a lot of full-frontal male nudity. More daringly, the film does have a string of gags revolving around Lance Armstrong as an “anonymous” source who ends up blatantly revealed early on. It all works relatively well, but largely because the film doesn’t overstay its welcome—at barely 41 minutes, it delivers the jokes and concludes without too much slack. For HBO subscribers, it’s a small tasty summer treat.