Release Date – 21st June 2024, Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 56 minutes, Director – Jeff Nichols
A photographer and reporter (Mike Faist) tracks the lives of a 60s motorcycle club as their dynamic shifts with the changing times and faces.
The Bikeriders is dominated by an aesthetic of ‘old school cool’. The style leads much of what comes across in the chapters and sequences which construct the development of a 1960s Chicago motorcycle club. All united by a love of riding bikes, and talking about riding bikes, the group – led by Tom Hardy’s Johnny – simply want to go about their business. They’re not a gang of tough guys, they’re family people. But, of course, they’re misunderstood by the rest of the city, seen as figures of unrest, particularly due to the actions of the younger generation who particularly misperceive the central bikeriding group.
A photographer and reporter Danny (Mike Faist) surveys and interviews the group the dynamic changes over the years. The shift comes through in bits and pieces, largely in the second half, within the chapters. There isn’t much of a narrative in place throughout writer-director Jeff Nichols’ latest, instead more a series of moments capturing that aforementioned vibe and aesthetic so key to the way in which the film wants to come across. So much of what we see is down to the initial external appearance. From the look of the gang, the roar of the bikes – there’s a clear attention to detail in the sound design – and on some occasions the accents.
Jodie Comer plays Kathy, the wife of key rider Benny (Austin Butler). She sums his reckless driving and attitude up with the statement “Benny thinks that when you die you’re better off than when living”. Benny is pitched as the successor to Johnny’s leadership of the group, maybe if he could get his act together, and the film seems to want to pitch Butler as a lead yet never really gives him enough to do to justify this. Meanwhile, Comer narrates much of the film with her outside view on the events and relationships of the core group, and while her performance is good it largely feels characterised by the accent.
With so much external detail happening on screen it does feel like the story is sometimes left behind. It’s hard to engage with some of the events and characters simply due to the main link being the bikes and same characters with little narrative happening alongside. The style is the personality and this would be more fine if there was more to the film as a whole. What we get is fine, and it has its moments and interesting beats, but it’s not always enough, especially in the first half before the changing face of motorcycle clubs leads to gangs and violence, to make for a more steady piece of work.
The plot beats, when arriving over halfway through, are skipped through with enough detail to have an effect while keeping the lingering embers of ‘old school cool’ in place to get across the point of “the end of the golden age of motorcycles”. In capturing the feeling of a photo collection – like the film is based on – things jump around and try to look back with largely the pictures and memories to go on. While this doesn’t quite construct a narrative to run throughout and properly tie things together it makes for something that works enough over the course of the film, even if not everything manages to grab your attention over the almost two hour run-time.
While there’s clear attention to detail in the overall aesthetic, look and feel of The Bikeriders the lack of story means it jumps through its sequences without always having something to engage with until the bigger developments of the second half.
Just A Little Bit Random 