Solid homage
“The Bikeriders” is several things- a love triangle between a married couple and the open road, a character study of the elements that make up the heart of a motorcycle club, and a homage to motorcycle movies of old. It’s a subject which director Jeff Nichols treats as bigger than any one character or story, which makes for interesting pieces rather than a coherent whole.
Framed as an interview by a photographer chronicling a motorcycle club, a young woman named Kathy (Jodie Comer) is our narrator and lens into the Vandals club, which is where she meets the carefree Benny (Austin Butler). She’s intimidated by many of the riders, but with Benny, it’s love at first sight and they marry within 5 weeks.
The club is run by Johnny (Tom Hardy), a guy who probably got the idea for it by watching Marlon Brando in “The Wild One”. He has his own set of rules that he imposes on the club and he’s generally fine with any idea, as long as it seems to come from him. He also rules with impunity if you ever piss him off.
There are also several other colorful characters involved with the club, no one better than Michael Shannon’s Zipco. Here’s a guy addled by drugs who hilariously thinks anyone who uses their brain for a living is a pinko. We later learn there’s reason for that and it’s an endearing testament to how the club works as a whole.
It’s clear Nichols is most interested in what these guys represent- the freedom of the ride while many others look on wishing they could be part of the crew. As one person, many of the riders don’t mean a heck of a lot to society, some of them have even been shunned, but the club offers structure, purpose and brotherhood. When these guys say they wanna die on a bike, there’s a kind of loyalty and integrity to the statement.
The film tries to, a little bit, point to the correlation between bikers and obscenity- how when we see a pack of bikers, we think guys up to no good. To do it justice, Nichols stays away from turning them into evil caricatures but also doesn’t shy away from what some of these guys consider freedom and how, sometimes gruesomely, they will choose violence if it warrants it.
One of the things I really did admire about this movie was Austin Butler’s portrayal. He’s not Joe Cool on a motorcycle, in fact he doesn’t really say much at all. But we see how vulnerable he is without the club- that he is in general just a boy who can’t grow up.
Comer adds another layer to it as she fiercely tries to get him to not just be with her but also choose her over the brotherhood and the open road. This is also one of those movies where you keep trying to place the accent- of not just her which seems like a mix of Chicago and Canada, but also Hardy, commanding in sort of a nasally Brando-esque drawl.
As the film turns away from the freedom and brotherhood angle into a more rise and fall story accompanied by idealistic fractions and hot headed young people in the last third, I felt like things started to fall apart a little bit. Some things felt rushed through, characters underdeveloped, and it felt less urgent and more like I was watching episodic pieces.
It’s too bad because with a little bit stronger direction in where it was going, “The Bikeriders” could have added some needed tension to go along with the nostalgic reverence. Still, this is a good movie with strong performances that promotes the ideals and feelings of road life and how some men just don’t want to be tamed.