‘Must see’ movie: The Bikeriders
Some films merely offer you a routine, humdrum plot. Others, like Jeff Nichols’ smokin’ cool The Bikeriders, whisk you away with a roar of mood and atmosphere
That’s no surprise coming from the versatile director of Mud, Loving and Midnight Special, all seemingly different (but equally wondrous) films with one common denominator: a precise, wistful sense of place and tone. As soon as we spot Austin Butler on a bar stool sporting a badass Vandals Chicago jacket on his back, that exacting disposition is evident here, too. With appealingly greased and moulded hair, Butler looks like he just stepped away from the Elvis and Masters of the Air sets for a swift fag break, wearing the invincible aura of a movie star like it’s his second skin. Vandals is the name of the motorbike clique Butler’s terse Benny is a part of. And to get him to take that jacket off – like a pair of menacing naysayers who don’t take kindly to bikers ask him to do – you’re going to have to kill him first. Or die trying
That temperament is an instant hook between the audience and Benny and whatever allegiances he swore to a group of leather-clad, chopper-obsessed fellas, good or bad. In other words, it’s impossible to witness Benny’s natural charisma and undercurrent of dauntlessness in that early scene and not promptly feel eager to dive a little deeper beneath the surface. That aroused curiosity echoes what Nichols must have felt when he saw Danny Lyon’s mesmerising 1968 photography book of the same name, which captures both the façade and detailed personalities of a Chicago-based motorcycle club in the ‘60s. Those photos are all black-and-white, but Nichols—more concerned with transposing his own impression of the pictures than simply copying its pages onto the big screen—works in glorious, grainy colour. His cinematographer, Adam Stone, captures the collective’s initially exuberant but gradually rusty machinations across dusty roads and alleyways
Nichols has made an utterly unfashionable romance, one that revolves around working-class white men – a drama that, in its indirect way, challenges assumptions and easy judgment. It’s gratifyingly surprising that a story of such masculine senses, partly about the sometimes ill-advised search for a manly identity, gets to have a woman narrator. If The Bikeriders is the Goodfellas of easy rider flicks – and there’s enough evidence of long takes, shifting perspectives and gang dealings that Nichols is taking a Scorsese-like route here – then the film’s lead personality, Kathy, is its Karen Hill. Portrayed with frisky precision by the always terrific Jodie Comer (who’s as at ease with her character’s specific Midwestern accent as much as she is with all the puffy hairdos), Kathy is introduced to us in a laundromat early on. She is being questioned by the Lyon stand-in Mike Faist, who gives the story an investigative, “Citizen Kane”-like shape through his interviews with various group members. “Five weeks later, I married him,” Kathy says with a spirited hint of naughtiness in her voice about the first time she met Benny
Kathy’s recollection of her first time at the bar that served as a kind of clubhouse for the Vandals has a comic pull beneath the first-impression menace. She cautiously makes her way through a rowdy collection of guys with memorable nicknames: bleary draft-reject Zipco (Michael Shannon), beefy Cockroach (Emory Cohen), loyal lieutenant Brucie (Damon Herriman), California recruit Funny Sonny (Norman Reedus) and dependable foot soldiers Corky (Karl Glusman) and Wahoo (Beau Knapp)
That night, she takes her first ride on the back of dreamboat Benny’s bike, and as they cross a bridge with the rest of the Vandals behind them in formation, the vision brings to mind Mongolian warriors sweeping across the steppe. Except they’re not waging war or in search of anything in particular
Unlike most of the club, its founder and president, Johnny (a stellar Tom Hardy), is gainfully employed, a truck driver with a wife and kids. Lightning struck when he saw Marlon Brando rebelling in The Wild One, and, drawn to the rev of engines on dirt roads, he formed a racing club that morphed into something more all-encompassing, a family of outsiders united by the why-the-fuck-not-ness of it all, as well as the allure of valves and carburettors
If it’s something of a cliché by now that feelings are less easily expressed for men, it was certainly the case for this generation. But beyond that, the Vandals are square pegs who find a place where they can communally not fit in. In their loyalty to one another, they’re also a family of brutes and a powerful one: In an instance of retaliatory arson, the firefighters stand back and let them watch the inferno they’ve created.
How everyone other than Johnny pays their bills or spends their days is not Nichols’ concern; he’s operating on the level of myth with this collection of types, from the soft-spoken Cal (Boyd Holbrook) and Brucie (Damon Herriman) to the vivid nonconformity with which Shannon, a master of unhinged idiosyncrasy, imbues pinko-hating Zipco. And as Funny Sonny, a California biker who didn’t expect to find kindred souls in Chicagoland, Norman Reedus contributes a spot-on touch of friendly mania.
“Fists or knives?” Johnny asks, after one of his customary long pauses, on the rare occasions when someone throws down the gauntlet to challenge him. When a Vandal does so early in the film, their ensuing fight is real and nasty but also played out within certain boundaries. Things are very different by the time a determined Milwaukee kid (Toby Wallace) shows up
Once the club starts to expand and let in younger members — kids without discipline (like Toby Wallace’s character) — or junkies and veterans mixed up by their experience in Vietnam, the sense of camaraderie that defines the movie takes a turn into much darker territory. We see someone shooting up at a party, and while Benny’s otherwise distracted, some guys grab Kathy and try to drag her upstairs. Later, in a very Scorsese moment, rumours that the Vandals turned to criminal activity are accompanied by shots of them smuggling drugs across the border and executing rivals under a bridge. The film’s (anti)climax takes place at a knife fight
From beginning to end, the visual beauty of the film pays tribute to the source material, and in key moments, such as a nighttime conversation between Johnny and Benny about succession, Stone’s mastery lends a cinematic intensity, wrapping the men’s faces in ink-dark shadow and gold-tinged light as Hardy’s deeply internalised performance hits a new register. But it’s a middle-of-the-day face-to-face between Johnny and Kathy that presents the toughest challenge. Referring to the husband who insists he can’t quit the Vandals, her eyes blaze. “He is mine, Johnny,” she says. Whether she believes it is another matter
In Kathy’s telling, the success of the Vandals is ultimately its undoing, and one of her final experiences at a club party presents a stark contrast to her initial impression of the guys. As the club grows, with chapters across the region, its identity changes. Some of the new members are strung-out casualties of the Vietnam War, and some are just plain mean. Their viciousness makes the founding members’ mano-a-mano violence look quaint and honourable — or simply idealised. This is a love story, after all
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