Writer/director Jeff Nichols based this wildly entertaining fact-based movie on photographer Danny Lyon’s book, which celebrated the Illinois-based Outlaws Motorcycle Club.
Through its fictionalized narrative, “The Bikeriders” makes profound commentary on subjects regarding toxic masculinity, cult mentality, and the role of women amid man’s animalistic urges.
Pack animals bite.
Nichols’s beautifully formal approach is stunning to look at, and to digest on intellectual and emotional levels.
The Viet Nam War is a constant presence lurking in the film’s subtext.
Inspired by a television airing of Marlon Brando’s “The Wild One” (1953), truck driver family-man Johnny (Tom Hardy) starts his own motorcycle club, the Vandals in 1965.
Johnny goes so far as to adopt Brando’s voice and speech patterns. Johnny’s whole communal club is based on artifice.
What could go wrong with such a phony foundation for positive social interaction to occur?
Add to that a repressed homosexual underpinning, and you’ve got problems galore.
In the words of Iggy Pop, “a heavy price for a heavy pose.”
Iggy’s “Stooges” era song “Down on the Street” makes narrative impact during one of the film’s most harrowing sequences.
Real life is hardly as romantic as Hollywood would have you believe.
Johnny bites off more than he can chew as his Vandals Motorcycle Club grows rapidly with multiple chapters around the Midwest.
A hotbed of cult violence breeds like wildfire. Stupid is as stupid does.
Tom Hardy’s Johnny hopes to pass his presidential club status on to Benny (Austin Butler), a young hothead adored by Jodie Comer’s working class Kathy Bauer character.
It doesn’t take much extrapolation to see the connection between motorcycle gangs and pseudo political cults such as the MAGA movement. Racism and sexism are baked into the mindsets of societal outcasts intent of instilling fear in all those they come across.
Primary to Jeff Nichols’s brilliant five-act film is the female perspective of its protagonist Kathy.
Jodie Comer gives an Oscar-worthy performance that defies all expectatio
Ms. Comer’s mastery of acting craft is astounding — next level stuff. Comer’s Midwest exquisite Midwest accent and range of expressive physicalizations are a delight to witness. Wow!
All young aspiring actors should study Jody Comer’s superb work.
Tom Hardy and Austin Butler have their hands full keeping up with Jodie Comer.
“The Bikeriders” is an actor’s actors movie by far and away.
Rated R. 114 mins.
