The Bikeriders is Comer’s star-making vehicle
Director Jeff Nichols has been on an impressive streak of memorable dramatic films that directly or indirectly involve the culture of middle-America, including Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter, Mud, and Loving. The Bikeriders is his latest dramatic piece of cinematic Americana (or, “Ameridrama”, to coin a phrase), stradling the median between mainstream drama and niche historical fiction. The Bikeriders is a surprisingly charming piece of old-school storytelling, buoyed by an impressive script and strong performances.
The Bikeriders is based on photojournalist Danny Lyon’s 1968 book of the same name, a catalog of his time interviewing, photographing, and traveling with the midwestern motorcycle group, the Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club (aka Outlaws). In the film, the group is fictionalized with the name Vandals, and the story takes place between 1968 and 1973. The film’s main characters are also based on real members of the Outlaws, including Johnny (Tom Hardy), Benny (Austin Butler), Kathy (Jodie Comer), Zipcon (Michael Shannon, a Nichols stalwart), and even Danny Lyon (Mike Faist). The Bikeriders uses the framework of Danny interviewing Kathy in 1969 then 1973 to set the stage for continuously jumping back in time to see the course of events that befall the Vandals from its idealistic formation to its tragic reshaping years later. It’s a traditional and risky framing device, which could potentially be seen as a crutch in place of a more dramatic narrative, but Nichols manages to pull it off, in no small part because of Comer’s award-worthy performance. She is tremendous.
If the cast members share one thing in common, it’s that they each have an abundance of onscreen charisma. Hardy has once again dissolved into a character, bringing a quiet but electric gang leader to life. Butler doesn’t have many lines, but is effective as the young, handsome, silent type. Even the various character actors filling out the supporting roles make strong impressions. The ensemble’s charisma is crucial to the plot because the Vandals need to be alluring, both to new joiners and to girlfriends and wives tagging along, unwilling to coax their men away, even if they want to. The Vandals represent a type of rule-breaking and anti-establishment idealism, one aimed at freedom and camaraderie more than crime and disruption (even if it does still support toxic masculinity). The Vandals start as a club, morph into a gang, and, by the early 1970s, the organization and all its national chapters are upended by a new generation of troublemakers and the disillusioned (often drug-addicted) men returning from Vietnam.
The Bikeriders is also very entertaining, with plenty of needle drops and slick edits to keep up a good pace. This is due to Nichols’s script, which lets Kathy supply the necessary exposition with a plucky sense of irony while the described events unfold in chronological vignettes. The script’s tightness distances The Bikeriders from cultural-shift statements like Easy Rider (which came out within a year of Lyon’s original book), and it isn’t as heavy-handed with its voice over, soundtrack, and gang action as Goodfellas. Instead, The Bikeriders is a clean-cut slice of historical fiction, distilling a shifting cultural era and midwestern aura into an adult summer crowd-pleaser.
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The Bikeriders opens in theaters on Friday, June 21st.
