The Bikeriders Review
The Bikeriders (2023) Film Review, a movie written and directed by Jeff Nichols and starring Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, Mike Faist, Boyd Holbrook, Norman Reedus, Damon Herriman, Beau Knapp, Emory Cohen, Karl Glusman, Toby Wallace, Happy Anderson, Paul Sparks, Will Oldham, Mierka Girten and Paul Dillon.
The Bikeriders is the type of gang movie that usually works best at a three-hour length. Marty Scorsese or Oliver Stone may have directed a biker picture like this and bloated it out to epic proportions. Jeff Nichols takes the no-plot, all character-driven approach and makes a well-acted movie but, unfortunately, The Bikeriders gets a flat tire halfway through and not until the end does it get itself back on the road. But, that acting here is top of the line. Jodie Comer, Austin Butler and Tom Hardy are in it for the long haul whether the film has that much of a plot or not and their performances are finely-tuned with Comer and Hardy doing some of the best acting of their careers thus far.
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The film is framed with Kathy (Comer) telling a photographer named Danny Lyon (Mike Faist) about the legendary group of bikers known as the Vandals. Set during the late 1960’s/early 1970’s, Kathy (complete with her Chicago accent) is full of personality. The movie opens with the love of her life, dedicated Vandal, Benny (Butler), getting into some hot water in a bar and the movie takes it back a notch to start the story over again. Kathy wasn’t looking for romance when she met Benny but was won over by his physical presence and overall appearance. So, the movie takes us through several different experiences with the gang members of the Vandals which are presented to the viewer with their very distinct character traits.
There are a lot of characters here. Michael Shannon serves as Zipco who was like a senior citizen in the group of bikers. Shannon gets some screen time but clearly there was more to his character on the page than what meets the eye in this film. Two particular standouts in the supporting cast, however, are Emory Cohen as co*ckroach and Toby Wallace as the menacing “The Kid” who will ultimately take the Vandals in a direction that differs from the principles on which the club was founded. Wallace is bone-chilling in terms of his performance while Cohen adds a surprising amount of depth to a character who could have simply gotten lost in the mix.
However, Tom Hardy as the original leader of the Vandals, Johnny, is absolutely outstanding. This could be Hardy’s best screen work since 2015’s The Revenant. Hardy plays the leader as a respectable, yet rebellious man who leads his group with fierce determination. Kathy confides in Johnny when Benny strays and Comer and Hardy share some phenomenal scenes together.
Austin Butler is very good here but he gets lost in the shuffle at times. The love story between his character, Benny, and Kathy doesn’t always feel three-dimensional. That’s because the movie goes back and forth between gang member scenes and intimate scenes between Butler and Comer’s characters unevenly. The movie could have used a dose of plot to speed up some of its interactions. Instead, the movie is more of a character analysis of a group of biker men who really didn’t know what to do with themselves other than get themselves in trouble.
Particularly discomforting to watch is an attempted rape scene. Kathy finds herself in a position where Benny isn’t around and although Johnny helps her, it feels like Kathy is a smarter character than she comes off in this sequence. Maybe, Kathy wouldn’t have put herself in such a dangerous position but the movie sort of makes us believe that she does. The results don’t seem to fit in with the rest of the movie which grows more violent after that scene.
Comer has never been better. Sitting in a laundromat telling her tale, Kathy is a woman with a lot of charisma and heart who truly found love with a man who had a hard time breaking free of his involvement with the gang which drove much of his young life. The ending of the film suggests that, perhaps, living dangerously is taking too much of a risk and playing it safe is the way to go in the name of love. An interesting message, to be sure.
The Bikeriders needed a director like Scorsese or Stone to flesh out the material to make it more accessible to audiences. Of course, how can you say something bad about Nichols when he gets a career-best performance from Comer and one for the record books from Hardy? This picture, at just under two-hours in length, is ultimately a mixed bag, though. It has all the markings of a movie with a lot more substance but plays more like a fascinating and wild slice-of-life than an unforgettable cinematic event.
Rating: 6.5/10
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