Film Review – The Bikeriders (2023)

Jeff Nichols makes a welcome return to screens this week with The Bikeriders, his first film in eight years. Not that he’s had his feet up since A Quiet Place, he itted subsequently he “wasn’t the right fit” and the franchise’s prequel arrives next week, with Pig director, Michael Sarnoski, in the chair. Now, the usually low-key chronicler of the American Midwest is back with a roar – of motorbikes – and a definite shift in gear.

With Danny Lyons’ book of black and white photographs documenting his time with a Chicago biker gang as his inspiration, Nichols has created a story spanning a decade in the rise of the Vandals, a motorcycle club. Founded by truck driver Johnny (Tom Hardy), who gets the idea from watching Marlon Brando in The Wild One, it grows rapidly from just a few friends with an interest in motorbikes to something bigger and harder to control. Johnny can see times are changing and sees renegade Benny (Austin Butler) as his likely successor, but the younger man turns him down. As the gang multiplies, Johnny finds himself facing threats from all directions.

Nichols is back among the outsiders that made his name in Take Shelter, but this time swops his much-loved downbeat tone for something more heightened. The narrative itself is physically dramatic, with fights, heavy drinking and one scene in particular that women in the audience will find decidedly threatening. There’s also something classical lingering below the film’s leather-clad surface, with wife Kathy (Jodie Comer) and gang leader Johnny essentially competing for Benny’s soul. It extends into Johnny’s single-minded focus on who should succeed him, although you can’t help but think that Benny is probably right in saying the job just isn’t for him. At the same time, we’re watching America in microcosm, a country going through the radical changes of the 60s and 70s fuelled not so much by gasolene as a rejection of post-war values, the aftermath of Vietnam and the rapid rise in drug culture.

It shows most of all in the performances of the trio at the centre of the action. Comer, Hardy and Butler are compulsive on screen, if hardly nuanced: the beautifully quiffed Butler mumbles and stares his way through the film, Hardy sounds like a high-pitched Brando and Comer’s accent never quite hits the right note. But you cannot take your eyes off them, Comer in particular, whose conversations with journalist Danny (Mike Faist) give the film a narrator who’s the ultimate outsider among the outsiders. There’s a high calibre cast as well, including Nichols’ long-term collaborator, Michael Shannon, plus Boyd Holbrook, Damon Herriman and Toby Wallace as the cold-eyed face of the future.

With its nostalgic soundtrack and strong visuals, it’s a rewarding re-creation of the decade, although when some of Lyons’ original photographs appear alongside the credits, it begs a question. Could – and would – the film look even better in black and white? That thought will linger as you leave the cinema, but it doesn’t get in the way of the film being an arresting watch. The gang and those around them are, essentially, just drifting through life, going to what they label “picnics” where they drink and fight other gangs. Yet, for all their aimlessness and thanks to Nichols’ storytelling skills, they’re remarkably and constantly compelling.

★★★★

In UK cinemas from 21 June / Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, Mike Faist, Boyd Holbrook, Damon Herriman, Toby Wallace, Emory Cohen / Dir: Jeff Nichols / Universal Pictures / 15