The idea of the open road is appealing to many of us since the freedom and ability to engage in a momentary act of recklessness where actions seem to have very few consequences and the adrenaline fuels our wild ambitions is something that represents a very different way of life. This is why I suspect biker gangs are viewed with an equal amount of admiration and fear since these are people who have pledged their lives, whether fully or only in their spare time, to engage in a kind of activity designed around a specific kind of liberation from social conventions. It’s not surprising that the golden era of biker gangs coincides with some of the most dramatic and unsettling moments in American history, since they were formed from the burgeoning counterculture movement, and continue to be seen as the very definition of anti-establishment ideals. Jeff Nichols returns from a hiatus that has lasted nearly a decade to direct The Bikeriders, an adaptation of the photography book by Danny Lyon, which is crafted into a film that tackles many of these same ideas, following the exploits of a Chicago biker gang (or “riding club” as they would prefer to be called, to distance themselves from any kind of criminal behaviour, despite it factoring into their daily routine more often than they would be comfortable to admit) named The Vandals as they undergo a series of changes over the years, whether in terms of the conflict for leaders to the very battle for survival, particularly in a time when their existence was constantly being questioned, mainly by those who viewed them as being against any kind of governing authority, whether legally or socially. A film that bears many of the traits of Nichols’ previous work (both for better and worse), The Bikeriders is a film with many layers, not all of them being as worthwhile as the others, which creates quite a decidedly mediocre film that promises to be something intriguing, but ultimately falls apart at the seams almost from the very beginning, making us wonder where the fundamental flaws were, and particularly how they could have been overcome with some further work to reflect the very clear merits that are unfortunately overshadowed by the shortcomings.

There is a fascinating phenomenon when we see audiences develop a sense of nostalgia for an era in which they didn’t live, but yet still feel a very strong connection, which is likely a result of the media creating an illusion of a period that we come to believe is true to the point where it feels like we have experienced it for ourselves, or at least are delusional enough to believe that we were born in the wrong era. This is the idea that essentially kickstarts The Bikeriders, which is a classic example of a film crafted to pander to this very specific kind of faux-nostalgia, knowing that audiences will be unusually receptive to the period-specific details and the general lustre of a bygone era. Nichols is a gifted filmmaker, and his greatest strength is his remarkable ability to evoke a particular time and place, so in this regard, the film is mostly a triumph – it pays attention to each intricate element and implements them into the story in a way that is quite compelling. However, it’s the underlying themes that have the most potential and make it clear why Lyon’s book inspired the director to make this film. Nichols has always been driven by the idea of exploring American life, looking at different periods and regions as part of his decades-long effort to create a vivid mosaic of life in the United States across time. Both his period films and contemporary works share a steadfast vision of American life, one that is simultaneously hypnotic and cynical, with his gritty style of filmmaking and poetic storytelling ability usually being a very good pairing. The Bikeriders follows this same general pattern, offering a raw glimpse into the lives of people who exist on the margins of society, and how frequently find themselves challenged by the broken promises of the American Dream, something guaranteed to everyone who sought it out, but yet remaining elusive when it came to actually reaping the supposed rewards of this system, which has been at the foundation of much of the director’s work, and which is amplified in this film, albeit not always in the ways that would normally make sense.

Beneath the overarching theme of the American Dream and what it represents at this particular point in history, The Bikeriders adds layers of further discourse by focusing on dominant perceptions of men during the 1960s, which was a time in which gender politics were evolving to become far more complex, particularly in how the institutionalized patriarchy that continues to be prevalent in western culture was starting to be called into question. This film is intent on being a firm deconstruction of masculinity, breaking it down to its fundamental core and presenting unique insights into the role men played in society at the time, and how there were different kinds of dominant masculinity, all of which seemed to be in combat with one another. This is reflected in the performances given by the central cast – Austin Butler and Tom Hardy lead the film, the former playing the silent-but-deadly young renegade whose quiet and mysterious nature makes him quite alluring, whereas the latter is the gruff leader of the gang who begins to worry when his heir apparent seems unable to live up to the same standard of leadership, forcing him to wonder whether the group he so carefully put together will survive should he meet the fate that he knows is inevitable. Several great supporting players appear to take on the roles of minor characters – Damon Herriman (a severely underrated actor who deserves more attention), Norman Reedus and Nichols regular Michael Shannon are all good but are in roles that are too small to leave much of an impression. Butler and Hardy do relatively well in their roles – Butler can’t escape the brooding pretty-boy persona he has been coasting off of for years, but considering he is in a new stage of his career (and one that post-dates the production of this film), we can only anticipate more exciting choices. It’s also somewhat obvious that Hardy’s character is inspired to start this gang as a response to seeing Marlon Brando in The Wild One, considering the comparisons between the two, but it does work in helping him anchor this performance into something recognizable, something that he has struggled with in many of his other works over the years. 

There are strong elements that make up The Bikeriders, but we find that it doesn’t entirely maintain the quality of these components, and instead begins to fall apart from the very beginning. Primarily, we find that the entire framing device was not particularly strong or notable enough to hold our attention. Undeniably, adapting a book of photography and interviews is not a conventional method of making a film, so credit must go to Nichols for being ambitious enough to find an entry point into the story. However, it comes from the wrong place – the character of Kathy is one of the weakest in the film, a cypher without any real perspective who exists almost entirely as one of the many molls that make their way through the gang. Making her the protagonist is somewhat peculiar since while having an outsider’s perspective on these events is intriguing, this particular character doesn’t offer much – and it doesn’t help that Jodie Comer delivers a mostly lacklustre performance, one in which the talented young actor who has provided some spellbinding performances is far too focused on getting the accent right (which she doesn’t, but that’s another matter entirely) and embodying the Midwestern charms of this woman, that we don’t even get a brief glimpse into her life or any precise reasoning for having her be the epicentre of the film. From this logistical failure in terms of the narrative, the entire film begins to crumble – the right tone eludes the filmmakers, and the story itself is not particularly compelling. Instead, it is a meandering, aimless jumble of scenes that leap between periods without any clear logic, and ultimately fail to reach any coherent point of interest. Ultimately, its most severe flaw is that it believes it can move along solely based on the atmospheric, free-form storytelling, when in reality this not only makes the film needlessly dense and confusing but creates quite an uncomfortable mood that doesn’t feel like it is contributing anything of real value or making any interesting or daring statements in the process.

The Bikeriders certainly looks the part of the kind of film it is hoping to emulate – it is a gritty, unnerving crime drama set in the 1960s, based around the biker sub-culture and how it functioned within society. However, beyond visual accuracy, this film doesn’t have much going for it, which proves to be quite disappointing considering it was directed by an objectively gifted filmmaker and one whose daring sense of direction was behind many terrific films in the past. There isn’t much nuance behind this film, which is bizarre considering how much potential it had in theory – the setting itself lent itself to endless possibilities, and the story was loose enough for Nichols to venture wherever he fancied, which makes its relatively dull, one-dimensional perspective and lacklustre story progression even more disappointing since it wasn’t a case of the director working from rigid, concrete material. As a whole, the film is lacking in many areas – good performances from most of the cast and a good visual aesthetic are not strong enough to carry the entire film, and instead only offer limited, one-dimensional perspectives that offer nothing particularly valuable, outside of being a momentary distraction from the mediocre material. It’s not a film that lingers in our memory, and it grows quite weary after a while – the novelty of seeing the charge of motorcycles speeding through the open road quickly dissipates once we realize there isn’t much substance to accompany it, and the film as a whole becomes something of a chore, being neither as energetic nor as compelling in practice as it seemed in theory, a severe flaw that diminishes the impact that this film could have had with a more steady, consistent approach and a lot more nuance in terms of the perspectives it wishes to explore, and the underlying message that ultimately falls by the wayside as a result of the mediocre storytelling and off-kilter perspective this film values above everything else.