The first shot of “The Bikeriders” is of a man sitting at a bar, his face in shadow while the logo on the back of his leather jacket — “Vandals Chicago,” printed around a skull and crossbones — jumps out at us.
When his face is revealed, he himself looks more iconographic than human: with his smoldering eyes and beautifully coiffed hair, Austin Butler (playing biker Benny Cross) is so obviously a movie star playing a biker punk that it’s almost parodic.
This is less a criticism than an observation, since for much of its runtime, iconography is essentially what “The Bikeriders” is about.
It’s a movie about mid-20th century American men who decide to step outside their day-to-day lives and play at being rebels, either with or without causes.
“The Bikeriders” introduces us to the “Vandals,” a group of gearheads playing dress-up as a rough, tough biker gang.
The group’s leader, Johnny Davis (Tom Hardy), literally got the idea after seeing Marlon Brando in “The Wild One.”
As Johnny sits on his couch with his daughters buzzing around the room and his wife calling from the kitchen, Brando’s laconic on-screen image (“Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?” “Waddaya got?”) transfixes him.
Shortly thereafter, he’s changing his clothes, changing his voice into a kind of imitation-Brando whine, and changing his little group of motorcycle racing enthusiasts into what looks like a Hollywood casting version of a motorcycle gang.
Johnny may be the head of the Vandals, but Benny is its heart. Johnny looks at Benny with envy, admiration, maybe even desire. There’s a fascinating shot late in the movie when Johnny and Benny are having a private conversation, and the use of a long lens almost makes it look as though the two men are going to kiss one another.
Johnny has a rival for Benny’s affections in Kathy Cross (Jodie Comer), a young woman who becomes almost literally hypnotized by Benny the first time she sees him, and is married to him within less than two month’s time.
A barroom argument ends with Kathy angrily shouting “You can’t have him!” on her way out the door, while Johnny squirms like a schoolboy who’s just had his secret crush announced to the whole class.
Kathy is the narrator of “The Bikeriders.” Throughout the film, we cut away to her being interviewed, first in 1965 — during the Vandals’ “golden years” — and later in 1969, when the bloom is off the rose of biker culture.
In theory, this is an interesting structural device on the part of writer/director Jeff Nichols. Like the intermittent narration by Lorraine Bracco’s character in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” it’s intended to offer us a female viewpoint on a macho world.
But Kathy is such a peripheral presence in the action of the story, and such an ill-defined character on the page, that the cutaways to her mostly prove frustrating. Who is this woman? Why is she enticed by this world? “The Bikeriders” not only never answers those questions, it never even asks them.
This is the ultimate frustration of “The Bikeriders.” Nichols doesn’t seem to have a “take” or an “approach” to the subject matter; he never really answers the question of why he cares so deeply about all this stuff, or why we’re supposed to.
The film is clearly woozily infatuated with this world of bikes and gangs, but incurious about why. Pictorially confident, it feels dramatically diffuse.
The acting is as broad and iconographic as everything else in the film, if no less effective for it. Butler’s whole performance is macho pouting; Hardy is essaying another one of his slightly goofy voices, the right choice for an average-Joe truck driver pretending to be a tough guy.
Comer’s is doing a thick-as-molasses Chicago accent that is apparently absolutely accurate to the woman her character is based on, and while it’s technically impressive, it always feels like an imitation, weighted down with the strain that must’ve gone into maintaining it.
It’s in little nonverbal moments where Comer shines, like her smile of both pride and embarrassment upon admitting that she married Benny only five weeks after getting on his bike.
Maybe that’s the problem with “The Bikeriders” as a whole. So much time and energy clearly went into creating the look of the movie that nothing feels lived in. It’s loving, but labored.
When Michael Shannon shows up as a spaced-out biker, he’s so unpredictable and alive that he almost throws the rhythm of the movie off.
Everybody else has been playing, essentially, a rough caricature, and suddenly this guy shows up who feels like a real person. “The Bikeriders” almost can’t handle that sudden infusion of humanity.
C.B. Jacobson is an Annandale native who makes independent films at Buddy Puddle Productions, and writes about movies at picturegoer.substack.com. Keep an eye peeled for him at the Emagine Monticello movie theater on Tuesday nights — seated in the middle of the auditorium, with a book in hand.
At a glance
What: “The Bikeriders,” rated R
Director: Jeff Nichols
Starring: Tom Hardy, Austin Butler, Michael Shannon, Jodie Comer
Running time: 116 minutes
Rating: ★★★
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