THE BIKERIDERS Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Jeff Nichols
Stars: Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, Norman Reedus, Toby Wallace, Damon Herriman, Boyd Holbrook.
In the 60s and early 70s, the biker exploitation movie was a popular subgenre of its own. Many of them were produced by the independent American International Pictures. That period yielded dozens of biker films like Angels As Hard As They Come, Angels Die Hard, Devil’s Angels, Hell’s Angels On Wheels, The Rebel Rousers, The Savage Seven, The Wild Angels, etc, and we even had the 1974 Australian film Stone, directed by Sandy Harbutt. The majority of these films depicted, and often glorified, the violence and chaos and the lawlessness of that world. More recently we had the tv series Sons Of Anarchy. The Bikeriders is the antithesis of those biker exploitation movies.
In the late 60s, photography student Danny Lyon embedded himself with an outlaw motorcycle gang in Chicago and interviewed various members and took lots of photographs, which he turned into an iconic book of photographs. His book The Bikeriders (published in 1968) provides the inspiration for this latest film from writer/director Jeff Nichols (Mud, etc), his first new film in seven years. The Bikeriders is a love letter to the freedom and camaraderie of the biker culture, a world that functions according to its own fluid set of rules. But it also explores the toxic masculinity and casual misogyny of the world of motorbike riders and their testosterone-fuelled and adrenaline driven subculture.
Set against the backdrop of the “golden age of motorcycles” The Bikeriders spans some eight years, from 1965-1973. This was an era before the disillusionment with America and authority, particularly in the wake of the Vietnam War, changed society. Later on, the outlaw bikie gangs became associated with the lawlessness of the 70s with drug trafficking, prostitution, organised crime, and mindless and wanton violence.
In this film we are introduced to the fictional Chicago Vandals, a motorcycle gang headed by Jimmy (Tom Hardy), a former truck driver inspired to take up motorbike riding after watching Marlon Brando’s rebellious character in the 1953 classic The Wild One on television. The gang basically hang around the local cafe that has become their temporary clubhouse, and engage in riding around the countryside, having races, drunken parties and the occasional fist fight. But they all share a connection, and are a de facto family with all its flaws and complications.
Our introduction to the gang comes via Kathy (Jodie Comer, from the award-winning one-woman stage show Prima Facie, etc) who is attracted to the wild bikies. While attending one of their informal get-togethers she spies the handsome but silent Benny (Austin Butler), and shortly afterwards the pair are married. But Benny is a bit of a live wire, unpredictable, volatile, and quick to action. “I’ve had nothin’ but trouble since I married Benny. I’ve seen more jails, been to more courts and met more lawyers,” says Kathy in one of her voice-over comments. Kathy pleads with Benny to leave the gang before he gets into trouble, but his love for the roar of the bikes and the open road prove too much of an allure for him.
Soon chapters of the Vandals are springing up across the midwest. The arrival on the scene of a twenty-year-old delinquent, known only as “the kid” (played by Australian actor Toby Wallace, from Babyteeth, etc), who approaches Johnny seeking permission to establish his own chapter of the Vandals, sows the seeds of the eventual destruction of the gang. Once Jimmy loses control of the Vandals the gang falls apart. Some members left but others fell in line and slowly embraced the violence and lawlessness that eventually subverted this world.
When the film opens Kathy is being interviewed by Danny (played here by Mike Faist, recently seen in Challengers), an effective device that introduces us to this world and also provides the necessary link between Danny’s book and the Vandals and their lifestyle. Nichols presents the film from Kathy’s perspective, which softens the usual testosterone associated with the bikie lore. But he also constantly interrupts the narrative flow and momentum of the film to return to a series of interviews between Kathy and Danny, an unnecessary framing device that slows down the narrative.
Butler (who made his mark in Baz Luhrmann’s biopic Elvis) brings a brooding, smouldering sexuality and taciturn quality to his performance as the enigmatic and hotheaded, self-destructive and unpredictable Benny, something of a wild card, and he cements his place as one of the screen’s sexiest leading men this decade. He exudes a similar vibe to James Dean here. But he isn’t given a lot to work with here and he mainly plays second fiddle here to Hardy’s brooding, grim Jimmy. Hardy mumbles his way through his role as if he is channeling Brando’s iconic performance from The Wild One, but he has an undeniable physical presence. Comer is also good as Kathy, who narrates this tale with plenty of good humour and pride, and she imbues her character with a feisty quality.
Nichols has assembled a strong ensemble cast to portray other members of the Vandals, and they give these flawed characters and outcasts a gritty authenticity with their dirty, unwashed denim jackets, scraggly beards and unkempt hair. The cast includes Michael Shannon, a regular in all of Nichols’ films; Norman Reedus (from tv series The Walking Dead, etc), Boyd Holbrook, and Australian actor Damon Herriman.
Nichols deliberately avoids any attempts to romanticise this lifestyle. He also eschews the usual soundtrack choices – there is no Steppenwolf’s Born To be Wild here – that also sets this film aside from the pack. The period detail and production design from Chad Keith (another regular collaborator of Nichols) reeks of authenticity, and the production benefits from the lyrical cinematography of regular collaborator Adam Stone (Midnight Special, etc).
And over the end credits we get some of Lyon’s black and white images to add context to what we have just seen.
★★★
