The Bikeriders

Jeff Nichols’ films are known for their gritty working class flavor. His latest one, The Bikeriders, is based on a book of the same title by photographer Danny Lyon, about an actual motorcycle club in the Midwest during the 1960s that eventually turned into a gang. Nichols wrote the screenplay, which captures the inchoate speech patterns of these working class tough guys, and the picture has the loose style of ’70s American cinema. For those accustomed to the slick, overpowering modern Hollywood action aesthetic, this movie might seem like a throwback. In a good way, I think. The biker film genre has of course been associated with low budget exploitation, but here there’s less grandiosity and more honesty. Nichols made an excellent artistic choice; the film’s point-of-view character is a woman.

Jodie Comer plays Kathy, a strong-willed, fairly conventional seeming young woman from Chicago. In a bar to meet a friend, she encounters members of the Vandals Motorcycle Club. Many are drunkenly rude, which turns her off. But as she’s leaving she sees a very handsome biker named Benny, played by Austin Butler, and it’s love at first sight, which was still something people believed in, in 1965.

Comer is from Liverpool, England, but you’d never be able to tell that from this performance, where her Chicago accent and streetwise mannerisms seem genuine. She narrates a lot of the film, as we see her character being interviewed by the photographer, Danny Lyon. Kathy’s outside and inside perspective—in a way she’s not from the same world as these guys, yet becomes one of them—is a crucial ingredient that makes the film effective. She enjoys and reflects the romantic self-glorification of the bikers, but at the same time she can see all the stupidity, waste, and absurdity too.

Austin Butler, who gained some fame playing Elvis Presley a couple years ago, plays Kathy’s partner Benny, whose hatred of authority manifests in crazy violent ways. He is fearless, which makes him a dangerous man, and lends him a lot of prestige within the club. But his love for Kathy hints there’s more to him.

The Bikeriders’ other main ingredient, holding the narrative together, is another English actor, Tom Hardy, as the leader of the club, Johnny. He is an inarticulate married guy with a job, but also a wild streak. Hardy is a master at depicting exploding rage, which Johnny usually does when he’s drunk. But he plays the role otherwise as tense and strongly contained. His sometimes high-pitched mumbling delivery reminded me of Brando. Sure enough, we find that Johnny was inspired to start the club after seeing Brando in his one biker film, The Wild One. Hardy’s performance elevates the film to a more deeply felt level.

Jeff Nichols’ favorite actor, Michael Shannon, is on hand as one of the more unruly gang members. A lot of other male character actors do some fine work. These young men being portrayed are full of energy, high spirits, and fierce loyalty. They also resent what you might call straight society, and people who have managed to get more educated, and the cops, and eventually other gangs. The dramatic arc leads to more violence. Kathy recognizes the insanity, and thus we, the audience, can also see through the toxic myths that the characters weave around themselves. The Bikeriders takes us on quite a journey.