Upon watching the Pride Parade a couple weekends ago, I was reminded of how fun riding on a motorcycle looks like. Wind in your hair as the world breezes past. The exhilaration of being outdoors while simultaneously on a moving vehicle seems too good to resist. That is, with the exception that you can be more easily hurt than riding in a car. Back in college I read Robert M Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for class, but it feels like the afterthought of the feature I plan to talk about today.
The Bikeriders comes to us over half a year than originally intended. Thanks to the writers’ strike, studios have put more Oscar fare in the summer months. Although I wouldn’t say that this movie doesn’t fit in. Sunny weather does work for this activity after all and part of the film takes place at warmer times. Director Jeff Nichols was inspired by photographer/interviewer Danny Lyon’s book of the same name. It is a shame that his work is out of print as the photos displayed in the closing credits are gorgeous and Nichols lovingly recreates them. Lyon, played by Mike Feist, is seen in the beginning asking questions of Kathy Cross (Jodie Comer) about her biker husband and how they met.
The film really starts with a telling of how her husband Benny got beat up and almost maimed by men outside a bar. Through her dialogue we learn how the Vandals gang started all through Chicagoland and then their expansion. I was often reminded of Goodfellas by way of The Wild One. In fact, the leader of the group Johnny Davis is seen watching the movie when he gets motivation. Tom Hardy imbues Johnny with a mix of gruff pathos and controlled hostility that few performers can muster. He has always been one of my favorite actors for what he brings to a role that would be lacking in others’ hands. Austin Butler stands tall beside him as Johnny’s right hand man Benny. In a moment of pure poetry, Kathy spots him from across the barroom leaning against a pool table, in one of Nichols’s stunning photographic homages.
Our director has made a name for himself telling stories of people in hard times and harsh environments. Born in Little Rock, each frame feels like it was washed in the Mississippi before processing. A down to earth grime saturates his features, not seen since the ‘70s. While some like Paul Thomas Anderson and Alexander Payne (both of whom I love) fall on cliche, Nichols is just that era as if his is some lost media found in a vault. His 2012 film Mud is widely credited as kickstarting Matthew McConaughey’s renascence. Nichols has worked with local boy Michael Shannon on Take Shelter and Midnight Special, as well as his supporting role he turns in here.
While only Shannon can boast about being from here, you can’t discount the accent work as inauthentic. Comer is working the hardest to shed her English dialect in favor of a deep dish patois, luckily sans extra cheese. It only veers slightly into SNL territory, but her immense talent brings it back from the brink. I am not sure what Butler is doing, maybe a mix of James Dean with his Elvis impression. But it didn’t take me out of the movie at all. Hardy has done this accent before as Capone so he doesn’t sound too bad.
In the end it was great to learn about this piece of local lore in a very entertaining way. This film has been out for a few weeks already and has been sadly a bit forgotten next to flashier fare. Here is hoping it will still be in the conversation into the fall. With a huge accomplished cast and a director still working at the top of his game, this should have been in awards contention. Let’s pray that it at least has the energy for one last ride.
