The Bikeriders: Biker Film is Born to Be Wild, But Doomed to Be Mild
By Thom Ernst
Rating: B
The Bikeriders, director Jeff Nichols's latest excursion into the grim lives of Southern outliers and society dropouts, stems from the images in photojournalist Dan Lyons’s book of the same name, a photo record of his time as a bike gang member in the ‘60s.
Nichols keeps Lyon’s book title intact. Everything else he makes up.
Whether Lyons and Nichols met in person or only through their work, their collaboration is evident in the film’s opening scene, a staged snapshot of the back of a lone man, slunk over a barroom bar, so dead center in the frame as to seem unnatural. Posed, even.
It’s hard to ignore how appealing this image of solitude and seclusion would be if it were hung on a wall.
The camera moves in on the figure to reveal a young man, Benny (erstwhile Elvis, Austin Butler), slouched with a drink and an empty, angry stare. Two tough guys sidle alongside him and demand he remove his ‘colours,’ aka his Vandals biker jacket. He doesn’t. There’s a barroom brawl that pours out into the parking lot. And then, with the backend of a shovel about to connect to the backend of a skull, the frame freezes, and a woman’s voice begins narrating.
Title cards introduce the speaker, a woman named Kathy (Jodie Comer) who is being interviewed along with other women in a laundromat. Kathy dominates the conversation. We will soon discover that the woman, Kathy, plays a significant role in Benny’s life, and his role in the newly formed bike gang, The Vandals.
I’ve not seen Lyon’s book, so I only guess which scenes might be crafted from Lyon’s photographs. (But stick around for the end credit roll where the photos that inspired the story are revealed).
Nichols writes with a deliberate coolness that can be as inviting as dismissive. Mostly, the coolness in a Nichols film is a disarming reprieve from the more boisterous depictions of outlaws and outsiders. However, this one is noticeably bereft of crime for an American crime movie. But it can also be a bit distancing, as though the film were skipping over huge swags of dialogue and events.
The Bikeriders is an ambitious origin story that aims for The Wild One (1953) but settles for The Lords of Flatbush (1974).
Nichols regular Michael Shannon has an entertaining cameo as a disagreeable biker with a chronic need to rant against the world. But it’s Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, and Tom Hardy who stand out. Butler broods with the charismatic intensity of a James Dean while Hardy, who plays Johnny, founder of The Vandals bike gang, wrings out his best Brando.
Jodie Comer steals the show, providing background and insight into the formation of a bike club that morphs into something more dangerous than just riding and parading through small outlying towns like the docile bikers Cher hung out with in Peter Bogdonavich’s Mask (1985).
The Bikeriders is Nichols's sixth feature film since bursting into the independent scene with Shotgun Stories. If you are to believe the ratings on IMDB, Nichols hasn’t had an off day since. This has earned him a dedicated following of which I am a reluctant member, fans who appreciate Nichols's ability to find the motivation within the unmotivated.
Nichols attempts something that evokes the late Robert Altman and the still-alive Paul Thomas Anderson. But what lands instead is a film that rubs closer to Emilio Estevez’s attempt to do something similar with his shallow dive into the ‘60s with Bobby (2006), an ambitious ensemble cast movie. .
The Bikeriders sparks enough interest to hint at the possibility of stronger stories being washed away in the flow of an unfocused narrative. There are good stories in The Bikeriders, fleshed out within an inch of their potential.
The Bikeriders. Directed by Jeff Nichols. Stars Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, and Tom Hardy. The Bikeriders opens in selected theatres on June 21.