Review: The Bikeriders – Easy riding

Directed by Jeff Nichols
Starring Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon

6.5/10

Taking us back to the day when the culture shifted to counterculture, The Bikeriders illuminates this transition through the perspective of bikers as they too shifted from somewhat law-abiding to outright outlaws.

The film is based on the non-fiction book ‘The Bikeriders’ by photojournalist Danny Lyon, who appears in the film at times interviewing and snapping photos of the gang The Vandals—though he’s mostly seen at the home of Kathy (Jodie Comer), interviewing her about her excitement and reluctance of being a biker’s wife.

She is wife to the very dreamy and quietly charismatic Benny (Austin Butler), a rebel without a cause. He’s in The Vandals, which is run by Johnny (Tom Hardy), a working-class family man who wanted more excitement and community in his life.

The Bikeriders doesn’t quite rely on dramatic character arcs, instead opting to take us through various vignettes of these characters and the bikers that come and go in their chapter or that set up chapters of their own elsewhere. The film really has an authentic time and place, feeling like Chicago in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. From the set design to the old-looking roads, bars, and locales to the time-specific accents of our leading characters, everything comes together to really form this setting (despite the hazy, desaturated cinematography—surely counterculture era Chicago didn’t look like that).

There’s a hint of evolution shown by the bikers as they enter the ‘70s, going from traffic violations to smack-dealing and murder. They never seem like entirely scary folks, just fairly rough riders who sometimes have to initiate a fight here and there, but with new implementations in place, they become a more frightening and legitimately threatening presence. But unfortunately, this evolution is shown in the film’s last five minutes, squeezed into the closing epilogue that closes off everyone’s story.

The Bikeriders is successful with establishing the community and setting of this era, but not as successful with character development, despite showing that there are ultimately new roads these characters travel down. With a bit more interesting development given to the characters that this talented cast inhabits, this new biker movie could’ve been closer to a cult hit.

DAVID MORGAN-BROWN