Jeff Nichols’ visceral crime drama benefits from some strong performances but takes us on an emotionally unsatisfying ride into the dark heart of a tough motorbike club in 1960s Chicago…

Summary:

US Midwest, 1960s. When Kathy (Jodie Comer) weds biker Benny (Austin Butler), she also marries into the Vandals, a motorcycle club run by Johnny (Tom Hardy), opening her up to a world of kinship and violence among disaffected outsiders. As the life takes its toll on her, Benny faces a test of his loyalty, while the entry of a younger generation threatens to break up the club and take it to a far darker place.

Review:

*Spoilers* It’s always unfair to make creative comparisons between films, as they ought to be judged on their own merits. However, with The Bikeriders, the influence of Goodfellas (1990) is hard to ignore – from the ‘family’ dynamics to the ‘wall of sound’ soundtrack (even Muddy Waters fades in for a few bars), to the casual violence and the hand-wringing women who marry into this world. The comparison extends to the structure, with an episodic narrative and voiceover technique.

Inspired by Danny Lyon’s 1967 photo-book of the same name, which told of the Outlaws club, The Bikeriders employs the device of a photographer putting together a book, who is invited in to record and photographs the bikers. However, his focus is on Kathy, who acts as our guide through the world of the fictional Vandals and whose personal recollections shape the story.

While presumably used in deference to the source material, the technique feels like a bit of a misstep, interrupting and fragmenting the action as we cut back and forth between the bikers and Kathy’s interview.

The film would have benefitted from spending some of this ‘interview’ time setting up the characters and their relationships more fully.

For example, we never learn what drove Benny to join the group or why he’s so loyal to Johnny. Similarly, aside from knowing he liked Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1953), we don’t understand what compels Johnny, a family man with a steady job, to invest himself so fully in this group that he’s willing to risk his life to keep his position as its leader.

Likewise, there’s a lack of context. Towards the end, we’re told that this was the ‘golden age’ of biker clubs. However, the wider implications of this aren’t really explored, beyond a few scuffles between rival clubs and an outlier from California rolling into town for a good time.

More importantly, given Kathy’s central role, we never really see her and Benny’s relationship take root or develop. Any chemistry between this mismatched duo is either non-existent or simply not given time to come through.

A brief bar meeting and an exhilarating bike ride, followed by a ‘red flags flying’ stalker move by Benny is all we get before she tells the interviewer matter-of-factly that she married him a few weeks later.

A scene or two revealing their individual motivations and deepening their connection would have made this a far more satisfying journey. As it is, they share very little screen (or bike-riding) time, making the third act resolution feel a bit thin.

As Benny, Butler does a great ‘brooding loner who’s not afraid of a fight’ but it would have been good to see other dimensions of his character, as the actor did so well in Elvis (2022). Without this layer of characterisation, the ‘torn loyalty’ aspect of the story is lost.

Comer makes a committed but grating (verging on annoying) Kathy, constantly fretting over the reality of the life she chose with her cool-looking but emotionally distant biker.

Kathy casually throws around colourful biker-guy monikers and recounts episodes of appalling violence like a Mob wife but there’s no real traction or explanation. One minute she’s shocked by the rough and ready lifestyle, the next she’s a willing participant, with Vandals hanging out at her house and parking their machines on her lawn.

At the beginning, the biker world is so alien to her that we need a more satisfying reason why she would commit herself to that life.

Without investing us in Kathy and Benny’s relationship, all we have is the spectre of the ‘what the hell did you expect?’ question hanging over her story.

As Johnny, Hardy is a charismatic and world-weary leader, ambling and mumbling through the story, almost resigned to a grim fate yet doggedly holding on to his slice of power. His attachment to Benny is another aspect of the film which could have used more attention.

Of the bikers, not surprisingly, Michael Shannon is a standout, using his scant screen time to good effect, revealing the kind of depth lacking elsewhere.

Throughout, the action scenes are visceral and evocative, whether that’s the sight of the Vandals swarming into town on their machines or the down-and-dirty violence that overshadows their world.

This again draws parallels – both complementary and otherwise – with Martin Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi’s Mob classic.

Goodfellas works because we see what Henry Hill sees. From the moment he watches from his bedroom window as those gangsters fool around outside the cab stand, we understand the seductive allure of Mob life against the realities of growing up in a neighbourhood of ‘nobodies’. The contrast of the glamour and the hole-digging. The normalisation and justification of the criminal behaviour. The privileges and sacrifices that come with being part of the ‘family’. It all culminates in Henry’s ultimate fate worse than death – ending up another suburban ‘schnook’.

However, with The Bikeriders, this balance is missing and so are the heart and the stakes.

Overall, The Bikeriders feels authentic, has some strong performances, and projects a gritty energy, effectively dropping us into this closed world of leather jacket-clad outcasts. However, while it’s a wild ride, the lack of depth, cohesiveness and emotional engagement makes it an equally frustrating one.

Writer takeaway

The Bikeriders highlights the ongoing debate about when a script is deemed an adaptation. In this instance, the credited source of inspiration is Danny Lyon’s 1967 photo-book of the same name. As well as images, the book contains transcribed interviews.

However, as reported by Variety, when awards season rolled around, the film’s writer (and director) Jeff Nichols found himself in the ‘original screenplay’ category.

Why? Essentially, it was because a photo book with anecdotes doesn’t have a defined narrative (although the point of photojournalism is to tell a story in images – a bit like a film). Interestingly, though, the book’s creator Lyon inspired the character of Danny, the photojournalist who chronicles the fictional motorbike gang.

However, it seems that the lack of a cohesive story to adapt is what makes the script original.

Other true-life films flagged in the article include Moonlight (2016), based on an unpublished play, and Nichols’ previous work Loving (2016), which cited documentary The Loving Story by Nancy Buirski as its foundation. Both of these films found themselves moved between the original and adapted categories.

It all highlights the grey area between what qualifies as a new narrative as opposed to one that’s been adapted from pre-existing material. Officially, these decisions are made in offices at the Writer’s Guild and the various awards’ bodies which apply their own criteria and reasoning.

From a writer’s POV, the main thing to appreciate is the sheer breadth of source material out there which can provide a jumping off point for screen drama. It also highlights the work that goes into the process of creating a script which has a coherent narrative and developed characters. As Nichols said:

“To be able to take words and images and somehow add them together, to give you a feeling of nostalgia — to give you a feeling of a time and place — it’s hard to do.”

Quoted in Variety, 28 September 2023 

Script source: Indie Wire

Go further:

Take a look at the trailer:

If you like this…

We’d usually list some relevant films here, but this time we’ve picked a book. To quote:

A phalanx of motorcycles came roaring over the hill from the west… the noise was like a landslide, or a wing of bombers passing over. Even knowing the Angels, I couldn’t quite handle what I was seeing. It was like Genghis Khan, Morgan’s Raiders, The Wild One and the Rape of Nanking all at once…

Hell’s Angels, Hunter S. Thompson (1966)

If you want to watch the original biker movie, track down the Marlon Brando classic The Wild One (1953). It was based on a short story, “Cyclists’ Raid” by Frank Rooney, which was published in January 1951 by Harper’s Magazine, which was inspired by news coverage of a1947 American Motorcyclist Association motorcycle rally in Hollister, California.