The Bikeriders
Macho movie elevated by leading lady.
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I’m not entirely sure what it is writer/director Jeff Nichols’ “The Bikeriders” (now in theaters) is trying to say and I’m not certain I need to. (I suspect it’s something along the lines of freedom ain’t really free or more so that it’s easily perverted.) The picture is undeniably cool – less a cohesive narrative than a series of vignettes. More than anything it’s an anthropological study of the biker gang subculture of the mid-to-late 1960s and early 1970s.
Kathy (a winning Jodie Comer) is a headstrong young woman from Chicago who finds herself in a bar alongside fledgling biker gang the Vandals when meeting a girlfriend for a drink. Kathy gets groped and harassed by these ruffians, but is assured by the group’s founder/leader Johnny (Tom Hardy) that no harm will come to her. She also spots and is drawn to Benny (Austin Butler, who eye fucks the hell outta the camera and by extension the audience with the movie star intro Nichols gifts him). The feeling is mutual and soon Benny, one of the quieter and more violent members of the Vandals, has Kathy on the back of his bike. She’s hooked.
Much of the movie is told through interviews with Kathy conducted by Danny (Mike Faist, late of “Challengers”). (“The Bikeriders” was inspired by photojournalist Danny Lyon’s 1968 book, which Nichols discovered on a coffee table belonging to his Lucero frontman brother Ben. Lucero’s tune “Bikeriders” appears over the closing credits.)
We hear about how Johnny was inspired to found the Vandals after seeing the Marlon Brando motorcycle movie “The Wild One” on television. We meet other members of the gang – guys with names like Zipco (Nichols regular Michael Shannon), Brucie (Damon Herriman, reuniting with Butler after having played Charles Manson in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood”), Wahoo (Beau Knapp), Cockroach (Emory Cohen) and Corky (Karl Glusman). Herriman’s fellow “Justified” alum Boyd Holbrook turns up as gearhead mechanic Cal and “The Walking Dead” fan fave Norman Reedus plays Funny Sonny, a California biker with bad teeth who tags along with the Vandals.
Johnny and Kathy eventually come to loggerheads over Benny’s soul. Johnny sees Benny as his heir apparent and wants him to become the Vandals’ leader – a position for which Benny has zero interest. Kathy wants to get Benny out of the life and is concerned with how the proliferation of drugs and violence has perverted the club. It seems as though the bigger the gang gets the badder the gang gets.
For as macho of a movie as “The Bikeriders” is – and it’s a very macho movie – Comer’s Kathy is its focal point and easily its most interesting character. The British actress aces her Chicago accent and lends the proceedings some much needed levity. Hardy gets some fascinating notes to play as Johnny – he’s married and has children and a steady job as a truck driver and yet he’s drawn to this outlaw lifestyle. Butler doesn’t do as much acting as the other two as Benny’s very much an enigmatic figure, but there’s no denying the kid’s a certifiable movie star and has screen presence for days.
“The Bikeriders” won’t be for all tastes or audiences. It’s very much a vibe and a bit of a hangout movie if you will, but Nichols and his longtime cinematographer Adam Stone do an excellent job of capturing a time, a place and a people. Amid the blood and the mud and the gas and the glory (fleeting though it may be) you’ll feel like you’ve had a coupla Old Styles and smoked your fair share of heaters (Man, did this movie make this recent quitter wanna light up!). Like most films concerning fringe cultures (among them “Goodfellas,” “Boogie Nights” and “Blow”) the ascent is more fun than the descent, but this one’s still worth a spin.