It’s been almost eight years since Jeff Nichols released his last film, 2016’s “Loving.” Yesterday, that all changed, when “The Bikeriders” hit theaters nationwide.
This film has had a turbulent last 10 months. Disney was originally supposed to release “The Bikeriders” in December 2023 but got cold feet after the film’s subdued world premiere at Telluride in September 2023.
Focus finally hopped onboard and picked up the film, and opted to give it a June 2024 release date, almost 10 months after its Telluride launch. You can bet Disney would have kept this film had they seen any awards prospects for it. The truth is that Nichols doesn’t make films for Oscars. His filmmaking is too subtle, too old-school, stripped of sensationist attitude for that.
The cast of “The Bikeriders” is stacked, including the likes of Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, Boyd Holbrook, Norman Reedus and Mike Faist. The film, set in mid-’60s Chicago, follows the rise of a fictional motorcycle club. Seen through the lives of its members, the club evolves over the course of a decade from a gathering place for local outsiders into a full-out gang, threatening the original group’s unique way of life.
It’s almost safe to say that Nichols, the filmmaker behind “Take Shelter,” “Mud,” and “Shotgun Stories,” has not made one of his better films, it somewhat gets bogged down by cliches near its climax, but “The Bikeriders” is still what I would qualify as a “good” effort from Nichols.
Story-wise, the film’s core is about a battle for the soul of Benny, a moody, cool-cat rebel. Then there’s Jodie Comer’s Kathy, who quickly becomes Benny’s girlfriend. She quickly sees the club evolving into crime and wants him to leave the motorcyle crew.
Tom Hardy’s Johnny, who wants Benny to succeed him as the leader of the Vandals biker gang, deserved more screentime. If there ever was an actor who could replicate the screen presence of Brando in “The Wild One” then it’s Hardy. No coincidence, Brando’s character was also called Johnny, and Laslo Benedik’s film plays in the background during a scene in “The Bikeriders.”
Nichols, a classicist filmmaker, doesn’t make films for short attention spans. His style is all about atmosphere, fully lived-in worlds, character over plot. It’s worked quite well for him. In “The Bikeriders,” Nichols reworks the "genre" in his own way, that is, he de-glamourizes it, de-ideologizes it, humanizes it, subtracts its epic nature and emphasis.
He does this both on a narrative level, and stylistically, given the classicist direction — always a bit resigned, sober, under the lines. In fact, the film tells the end of a world, of a lifestyle, of a male micro-society — observed, however, from a female point of view as it’s Kathy who tells us this story as she’s interview by a journalist/photographer (Mike Faist).
It’s in Kathy’s interview that the film falls most flat. Every 15 minutes, or so, Nichols cuts back to her telegraphing the next few scenes for us, stripping the viewer of any kind of surprise revelation. It’s a misguided creative decision on the part of Nichols, cutting short the momentum and our immersion to the story.
What makes the film interesting is in its tackling of an era, a sense of freedom, that gets gradually eroded. Benny, the only character who doesn't show off, the only one who doesn't seem to need social structures, the only one who doesn't act but simply is, seems a tad too underdeveloped, or maybe underdelivered? I don’t think Butler was the right choice for this role. The actor tries a little too hard to look “tortured” and “cool” in every scene
Nichols' merit is not to sensationalize, not romanticize, and that’s what I love about his films. He’s so rigorous in avoiding any melodramatic temptation that, in the case of “The Bikeriders,” the film is ultimately a restrained and valuable work on his part, albeit one that I wish could have cracked open its characters a little more.