There comes a moment in this Lance Armstrong biopic when the Sunday Times journalist David Walsh (Chris O'Dowd) and his editor are discussing Walsh's suspicions about the cyclist. The readers, he acknowledges, do not want to be told that their heroes are cheats and that their world is shit.

Well quite. The Program is based on Seven Deadly Sins, Walsh's account of a 13-year investigation into the seven-time Tour de France winner. But don't expect David and Goliath. Stephen Frears's clever biographical drama wisely benches the plucky sports journalist in favour of a detailed account of Armstrong's doping regimen. And what a regimen it was.

It is virtually impossible to watch the detailed eponymous procedures without pondering the notion that, in a sport entirely tainted by allegations of blood doping, perhaps we should not penalise those who prove particularly good at blood doping.

If that moral quandary wasn’t quite enough to contend with, the viewer must also consider Ben Foster, who, in order to prepare for the role of Armstrong, undertook the cyclist’s blood doping programme. Foster is superbly and appositely hubristic in the central role. We’re never sure if his increasingly volatile Armstrong wishes to advance the lie or get caught in the telling.

Riding alongside is Breaking Bad's Jesse Plemons, whose brilliant depiction of Armstrong's US Postal colleague Floyd Landis puts one in mind of an animal gnawing its own leg off to escape a trap. Kudos too for Denis Menochet as the team director Johan Bruyneel, a voice of reason – or at least what passes for reason – in a mad subculture.

Budgetary constraints tell throughout the film – Paris has seldom looked more like a green-screen – but the cast working from a nuanced screenplay by John Hodge (Trainspotting, Shallow Grave) ensure the picture takes the yellow jersey.