There’s a subgenre of early-‘60s girl group pop that centers on teenage delinquents and the ladies who love them. You know the type: guys wearing leather jackets and blue jeans, rolling packs of cigarettes into their white t-shirt sleeves and, of course, riding motorcycles. Two-wheeled and growlingly loud, motorcycles are objectively the most threatening form of road transport apart from, say, tanks. Songs like “He’s a Bad Boy,” “Leader of the Pack” and “Don’t Drag No More” explore the push and pull, the highs and lows, of falling for the kind of throttle-driven rebels Marlon Brando once portrayed in The Wild One.
Jeff Nichols’ sixth film, The Bikeriders, explores and dramatizes the very tropes of that subgenre, turning them into a full-scale love letter, one that soon becomes a cautionary tale. At the center of the movie is its theme song, the Shangri-Las’ glorious 1965 classic “Out in the Streets,” which also doubles as a leitmotif (that song’s foreboding, reverberated oohs punctuate the proceedings throughout). Most of the title riders here may be in their 20s and 30s, but Nichols captures the same devil-may-care essence of those teenage odes, and their inherent, and inevitable, dire consequences.
The Bikeriders is a fictional adaptation of Danny Lyon’s photo book of the same name, a seminal work of photojournalism first published in 1968. The book is an intimate portrayal of American biker subculture during the 1960s. Lyon, an accomplished photographer and filmmaker, immersed himself in the world of the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club, spending several years (from 1963 to 1967) documenting their lives. The film, written and directed by Nichols, shifts the action out a few years, instead ending in 1973, and it smartly tweaks many key details for narrative effect.
A version of Lyon, played by Mike Faist – whose star continues to rise following Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story reboot and this year’s buzzy hit Challengers – is part of the movie’s framing device. He interviews Kathy, the excellent Jodie Comer (a breakout star of BBC’s Killing Eve), about the events that then unfold in flashbacks. So, the story is told from Kathy’s perspective, a plucky young woman drawn into the biker world through her husband, Benny (Austin Butler). Benny is a charismatic and early member of a club called the Vandals, founded by a truck driver named Johnny (Tom Hardy). Benny’s deep involvement with the gang upends Kathy’s life, bringing her much-needed excitement and a sense of community, but also exposing her to the darker side of the biker lifestyle.
As the club grows in size and influence, its original spirit of freedom and camaraderie starts to darken and fray. The group faces internal strife and external pressures, leading to conflicts that test the bonds of brotherhood. Criminal activities and violent confrontations, with rival gangs and law enforcement, increase in frequency and escalate in degree, more and more as the years go by. All the while, Kathy becomes a reluctant witness to the club’s transformation from a close-knit group of free spirits, to a dangerous and lawless organization, to a full-fledged crime syndicate. And yet, she remains a sort of den mother throughout, even as bare fists start brandishing knives and, eventually, guns.
The film’s supporting cast includes the incomparable Michael Shannon (who starred in Nichols’ harrowing debut feature Take Shelter), Norman Reedus (of The Walking Dead fame), Boyd Holbrook (from the Netflix series Narcos) and Damon Herriman (whose credits include the FX series Justified and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood). All the men are good to great, but Comer is the picture’s center of gravity, its don’t-cha-know anchor.
Comer isn’t simply playing a Mid-Western rube. No, she could be the fierce female lead of a Fargo television season, filtered through an Easy Rider prism. It’s a fabulous and commanding performance, one with a thick accent. (Speaking of Fargo the show, Comer immediately brings to mind Kirsten Dunst’s bravura season-two work.) The Bikeriders has been poorly marketed. Rather than being a moody throwaway, this surprisingly buoyant film recalls (of all things) elements of Wes Anderson’s visual vocabulary and Thelma Schoonmaker’s expert, editorial flair. Despite its violent subject matter, The Bikeriders is light on its heels and, dare I say, fun. This is the exact kind of a movie – smart, mid-budget and aimed squarely at adults – that people still insist Hollywood never makes anymore.
Photo courtesy of Focus Features
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