The Bikeriders (2024) Review: A Visually Stunning But Surprisingly Hollow Motorcycle Drama
The Bikeriders, which is already available to buy or rent via PVOD on multiple platforms such as Apple TV+ and Prime Video since July 9, marks the long-awaited return of Jeff Nichols in eight years since Loving in 2016. His latest movie harkens back to the outlaw biker film genre such as The Wild One (1953) and Easy Rider (1969), with Nichols even goes as far as honouring the former’s groundbreaking genre classic during a scene where one of the characters, Johnny (Tom Hardy) got his inspiration naming his founding club as Vandals Motorcycle Club after watching the movie on TV.
Nichols, who inspired his screenplay from Danny Lyon’s 2003 photo book of the same name, reminds me of Martin Scorsese’s filmmaking style. Voiceover, freeze frame, eclectic needle drops, violence and the glamorization of its subject matter, which in this case of The Bikeriders, it’s about the bikers instead of gangsters. The movie is told primarily from Kathy’s (Jodie Comer, nailing a convincing Midwestern accent) perspective as she is being interviewed by Danny Lyon (Mike Faist), a photojournalist documenting the Vandals Motorcycle Club. Kathy turns out to be the estranged wife of the temperamental biker, Benny (Austin Butler).
From there, the story goes back and forth between Kathy’s interview sessions and how she first gets to know Benny in the first place. Nichols’ screenplay also covers the daily routines of the Vandals Motorcycle Club led by Johnny, where Hardy seems to be channelling the late Brando’s signature mumbling voice and the rest of his biker gang. We also see Danny spending time with the club, conducting interviews and taking photos.
Credits to Nichols for getting the nostalgic look and feel of a yesteryear outlaw biker film with the help of Adam Stone’s stunning cinematography and Erin Benach’s spot-on costume design of the 1960s era. If this is judged solely by its visual aesthetics, The Bikeriders certainly earns its place as one of the best gorgeously shot movies of the year.
But despite enlisting who’s who in the ensemble cast, the movie surprisingly does little to make me care about the life of these bikers. Austin Butler may sport the ideal look of a young, rebellious and hot-tempered biker but it’s odd to see his character, who doesn’t talk much throughout the movie, feels disappointingly hollow. There’s barely any chemistry between him and Comer’s Kathy, even though the latter does a good job playing the wife of the biker who is both frustrated and fed up with her husband’s involvement with the motorcycle club. Some of the recognisable names such as Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon and Norman Reedus all look the part as bikers but Nichols wasted their talents with underwritten characters.
It doesn’t help either when Nichols’ decision to zero in on his story strictly from Kathy’s point of view resulted in an ill-advised move. This makes the movie strangely passive since we don’t get to see from Benny’s perspective, who is supposed to be one of the lead characters here. For a movie about the slice-of-life exploits of a biker gang, wouldn’t it be wise to immerse us deeply into their world? Instead, it’s all surface-level storytelling and it gets baffling with the episodic and increasingly ineffectual narrative, making the movie’s nearly two-hour length feel like a chore to sit through.
By the time the movie plods through its anticlimactic conclusion, Nichols has lost his way like an out-of-gas motorcycle stuck in the middle of nowhere. That’s a real pity because there’s so much potential in The Bikeriders, which I thought this movie going to be one of my Top 10 lists by the end of the year. It’s a missed opportunity and a rare misfire for the otherwise brilliant Jeff Nichols, who made great movies like Take Shelter, Mud and Midnight Special.
