Writer and director Jeff Nichols came to international awareness thanks to back-to-back brilliantly crafted indie films. I’m speaking of the Michael Shannon-led Take Shelter (2011) and one of the best films of Matthew McConaughey’s “McConaissance” era — Mud (2012).
Nichols’ scifi-infused reteaming with Michael Shannon, 2016’s Midnight Special, failed to reach the heights of his earlier work. With 2016’s Loving, Nichols delivered a by the numbers story investigating racism in decades past America. The love story was anchored by the brilliant work of Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga, with Negga getting a Best Acress nomination at the Academy Awards. However, it was a more forgettable endeavor from a writer and director that has previously shown such incredible aptitude for the art form.
Originally slated for a 2023 release, The Bikeriders arrives mid 2024 with early film festival reviews tempering expectations for its wider release via Focus Features.
A night around the television in the 1960s, we find Tom Hardy’s Johnny sitting with his wife and daughters as they Watching television with his wife and young daughters. The box-shaped unit broadcasts 1953’s The Wild One, a film which features a biker gang doing the stereotypical things with the young Marlon Brando as the lead.
Johnny is truck driver, clearly uptight with limited emotional development… what used to be called a “man’s man” and celebrated amongst the working class.
A jump in time finds Johnny in the underbelly of Chicago forming a version of the Black Rebels Motorcycle Club with fellow minded riders. The name, the Vandals, has the edgy, antisocial flair without being overtly cruel as so many gangs are with relative ease.
Exploring the narrative of a less-than-authentic gang formed because of the love of biker films is fascinating… almost in the vein of Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass (2010), despite a far different tone.
Around this time, Jodie Comer’s Kathy Bauer meets Austin Butler’s Benny Cross, a hotheaded member of the Vandals who exudes an unstoppable charisma that seems them married in less than two months. Butler doesn’t have to lift a finger as his natural affable charmer gets a steroid sized boost from the bad boy biker wardrobe.
So much of the world of the Vandals is captured by young photographer Danny Lyon (Mike Faist), who also travels the Vandals. He learns about Brando’s inspirational affect on founder Johnny Davis, and we wonder if this makes Johnny less of a leader in the eyes of some. When one of the Vandal’s suggests that new chapters be allowed to form, Johnny shoots down the idea and it triggers tension. They engage in a fist fight, but Johnny easily reclaims his authority by winning handily. He does, however, grants permission to expand the club and chapters arise across the Midwest.
In 1969, the Vandals are well known and with that comes a target on one’s back. Butler’s Benny gets violently attacked by two men in a bar who dislike his “colors.” The most graphic imagery comes from the shovel that nearly cleaves off his foot. When Johnny learns on this, he forces the patrons’ names from owner and has the Vandals to burn down the establishment. Johnny’s leadership and seeking of swift justice reminds his men that he is the alpha (to borrow from the vernacular).
The entire ordeal has shaken Kathy, and when Johnny asks Benny to attend a rally while he’s still recovering… well, it doesn’t sit well with Kathy. Johnny offers Benny the leadership of the club when he steps down, a move that a pre-wounded Benny may have coveted… now, Benny rejects it.
The tragic downfall of Johnny and the Vandals comes for a young delinquent, called “the Kid” (Toby Wallace), who wants to bring several members of his bike club into the Vandals. Johnny tests the Kid’s loyalty to his friends and when the Kid is will to abandon them, Johnny sends him packing.
Johnny’s dismissal leads the kid to challenge him with a knife. Johnny dispatches him in combat, mistakenly allowing him to live. The film veers into the analysis of the Vietnam War and its effect on the biker community. Johnny is more despondent and less effective as a leader after losing another friend, Bruce. This is the darkest period of the film, where a longtime member is beaten up by new members for expresses his interest in pursuing a career as a motorcycle police officer.
As Benny intervenes to take the man to the hospital, Kathy is nearly gang-raped save for the quick action of Johnny. Kathy demands Benny leave the group but instead he takes a break from her… At the same time, at the party to protect her, she demands Benny quit the Vandals. Benny does one last thing for Johnny, in order to help the one member exit the gang. Benny is finally ready to be out himself, rejecting a leadership offer from Johnny and going off to build a new life.
After joining with the Milwaukee Vandals chapter, the Kid challenges goes back to Johnny and challenges him for leadership. What starts as a knife fight only escalates — the Kid shoots Johnny dead and with it, the true era of the Vandals. Kathy explains to Lyon in an interview how the Vandals took a tour under the Kid’s leadership. Basically, the gang turned fully criminal with drug trafficking and murder being as common as revving an engine. There was no place for the old members and the original founding principals of the Vandals, either fall in line or die.
Upon hearing that Johnny passed, Benny returns home and has a true emotional breakdown, delivered perfectly by Butler. He and Kathy relocate to Florida and Benny takes over as mechanic at his cousin’s garage… no more motorcycles. Kathy reveals to Lyon that they are happy and though the life is behind Benny, he still smiles as the sound of motorcycles.
The real winner of the picture, if there is one, would be Butler who is uniquely qualified to slip into the skin of these anti-establishment characters. The second half of the film feels the loss of Butler, feeling lifeless and artificial. Without Butler to hold audience’s attention, the film becomes an unfocused meandering journey with little to no emotional investment.
Hardy’s Johnny starts out with good intent but has a very predictable descent into authoritarian abuse of power, a sort of biker poser that was once a film fan…. now, he believes he’s the genuine article. Nichols then shifts Hardy’s Johnny into that of a disillusioned tragic martyr, a victim of his own social experiment as if he is the Ex Machina Oscar Issac in non-tech, badass form.
Comer, already well-known as a transformative artist, is great burning through cigarettes and dropping her overseas accent for the Midwestern sounds and attire. The script gives her little meat to play with, and certainly no character arc, but the transformation alone may be worth Oscar consideration if the year ends up weak for Supporting Actresses.
This is unfortunately another miss in the catalogue of a still very promising writer and director, but one which would be much less palpapable without the incredible talent he attracts onscreen.
Letter Grade: C