Jeff Nichols has always centered his films on ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances, and in The Bikeriders he finds his most typically Hollywood subject yet—a biker gang in 1960s Chicago.
Inspired by photographer Danny Lyon’s eponymous photo collection, The Bikeriders follows the rise of the Vandals MC and the central figures that make up the founding members of the club. They come with their cool motorcycles, all “chopped” to individual styles and specifics, some have colorful nicknames like Wahoo and Zipco, and all proudly wear the Vandals’ “colors” on patches and insignia on their jackets. Nichols, about as understated a filmmaker as America produces, revels in the sights and sounds of the motorcycle club, with overpowering engines and rushing wind filling the soundscape of his film.
The Bikeriders looks gorgeous, lensed by cinematographer Adam Stone, with beautiful warm light filling even nighttime scenes, and plenty of sun to shine off the chrome decorating the bikes. But like all Nichols’ films, The Bikeriders is filled with melancholy, and an inescapable sense of larger forces marching inexorably toward doom. It’s a film that can’t even muster up proper nostalgia for the bygone era it depicts, despite all the beauty shots of motorcycles and slick needle drops on the soundtrack, The Bikeriders is constantly whispering, This is ugly, don’t you see it? The rot was always there.
Danny Lyon’s photo collection has no central narrative, so Nichols invents one centered on Vandals founder Johnny (Tom Hardy), his would-be protégé Benny (Austin Butler), and Benny’s wife, Kathy (Jodie Comer), who narrates the film, telling her story and the story of the Vandals to photographer Danny (Mike Faist, given nothing to do but a warm, understanding presence anyway). It’s a kind of love triangle except no one seems really in love. Kathy and Benny are locked into a toxic relationship fueled, presumably, by good sex—their initial meeting is rife with tension and chemistry which never really appears again between them—and in Benny, Johnny sees the kind of footloose and fancy-free man he always wanted to be, rather than a man saddled with a family and, gasp, a good job.
In one of its funnier bits, Johnny gets the idea to start a motorcycle club after watching Marlon Brando in The Wild One, which turns The Bikeriders into an ouroboros of Hollywood glamour and real-world effect. As much as Johnny wants to be like Brando in that film, though, he’s got a wife and kids and a solid union job as a trucker. But on the weekends, he races motorcycles with his friends, and soon enough he’s got everyone organized into a motorcycle club dubbed the Vandals. At first, the club seems like the formalization of something they were already doing, but violence is laced throughout the story, suggesting that the men drawn to Johnny and the Vandals weren’t just seeking community, but power, too.
Amidst it all is Benny, a sort of blank screen upon which everyone projects their idea of him. Nichols has a massive director’s crush on Butler, framing and lighting him with loving reverence, making no bones about setting him up as the real Brando of the bunch. Benny is always cool, always sexy, always lit within an inch of his life. Johnny sees in him the prototype of what he imagines himself to be—cool, powerful, commanding attention. Kathy sees in him someone who adds a little excitement to her life. But really, Benny is disassociated from everyone and everything. He accepts no responsibility, he lets everyone down at one time or another. He is that blank screen, and nothing more.
Jeff Nichols has always been an understated filmmaker, but here his tendency toward minimalism becomes The Bikeriders’ biggest weakness. In most cases, his economical storytelling works in the favor of the colorful characters who make up the Vandals. The cast is full of excellent actors, and most get at least one monologue that allows them to shade in just enough information about their character to contextualize their life with the Vandals. But Benny is frustratingly blank, a little too underdrawn to ever become as interesting as everyone else makes him out to be. Butler does his best, infusing Benny with a somewhat confusing mix of loyalty and devil-may-care unreliability so that you have to wonder if Benny even knows what he wants—an ambiguity that becomes the most interesting thing about him—but eventually, we the audience need a reason to buy into this character, and we’re never quite given one.
Still, even with a wobbly side on his central triangle, Nichols makes The Bikeriders work on pure artistry. This is a GREAT looking film, a GREAT sounding film, a WONDERFULLY acted film, and the way Nichols builds to the climactic moment is so subtle it almost feels shocking when the big violence comes…except for all the littler instances of violence along the way. What Nichols does best is seed a feeling of inevitability throughout the film, so that each small piece seems inconsequential until you see ghastly whole. The cool music, the cool jackets, the cool motorcycles, none of it can camouflage the diseased heart of the Vandals. The worst elements will always overtake the group, courting danger will always lead you into danger, escalating violence always has to end somewhere, and nothing gold can stay.
The Bikeriders is now playing exclusively in theaters.
Attached - Austin Butler and Jodie Comer at a screening and Q&A for The Bikeriders in New York.
