Ivan Radford | On 27, Jul 2024

Director: Jeff Nichols
Cast: Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy, Mike Faist, Michael Shannon, Boyd Holbrook
Certificate: 15

There are old-school movies and there are films that feel like they were made decades ago. The Bikeriders is the latter.

The film is inspired by photojournalist Danny Lyon’s (Mike Faust) time spent with a gang of Chicago bikers. The Vandals, we learn early on, were started by Johnny (Tom Hardy), who got the idea after watching The Wild Ones. “What are you rebelling against?” Marlon Brando’s character is asked in the classic 1953 crime flick. “Whaddya got?” comes the iconic reply. That we see Johnny watching that scene is no coincidence – The Bikeriders is a story not just about being an outlaw, but about the mythical yet ultimately unrealistic appeal of being an outlaw in the first place.

It’s only natural that Jeff Nichols should be drawn to such material – from Take Shelter and Midnight Special to Mud, he’s a director who has a knack for looking at Americana through a fresh lens. Here, he falls in with the swaggering machismo of the posturing, violent gang members – men who seem to care more about machine then the people in their lives, or men who only have their fellow gang members as the people in their lives. Either way, from the startling brutality of the opening sequence – in which a bike rider refuses to take off their branded jacket – there’s a wary, weary edge to the consequences of such a lifestyle.

The biker at the beginning is Benny (Austin Butler), a reclusive, brooding quiet type, whose stoic mystery can’t help but attract Kathy (Jodie Comer), who’s reluctantly drawn into the Vandals’ orbit. Benny’s dedication and tunnel-vision existence makes him a natural successor to Johnny – at least, it does in Johnny’s eyes. As time drags on – and the ideals of the peaceful 60s tick over into a nastier, cynical 70s where Vietnam veterans start to join the club – the challenge of holding together an increasingly fragmented group becomes impossible. When men of all shapes, sizes, backgrounds and worldviews are all looking for something different in the same undefined idea, tensions are only going to turn sour.

That sweeping portrait of a country, a society and of masculinity is told with a beautifully languid attitude that matches the bikers’ carefree drifting through civilisation. Tom Hardy is the fantastically growling heartbeat of the piece, grounding it in a grittiness and an unobtainable goal. Jodie Comer dons a flawless accent for the sceptical Kathy, whose narration imposes order upon chaos in retrospect, undercutting and providing a vital outsider’s eye on events. It’s Austin Butler, though, who walks away with the whole show, simmering with a magnetic charm that makes him as unreadable as the movie stars that first kicked the Vandals into gear all those years ago.

Nichols assembles an excellent, and instantly convincing, ensemble of parts, including Michael Shannon as an oblivious loner, Emory Cohen as a hard-hitting follower, Damon Herriman as dutiful second-in-command Brucie and Boyd Holbrook as introverted mechanic Cal. Together, they capture the complexity of real life versus the glossiness of myth, as Nichols and DoP Adam Stone bring Lyons’ images into motion – and make sure we see the grease beneath the wheels. Cool, thoughtful and immediately timeless, this old-school ode to being old-school is a gorgeously immersive ride.

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