The Bikeriders
Nostalgic drama from Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter, Loving) about a motorbike club that evolves from a gathering place for outsiders to a sinister gang. With Jodie Comer, Austin Butler and Tom Hardy.
Inspired by Danny Lyon’s photographs and interviews from the 1960s, THE BIKERIDERS charts the rise and fall of an outlaw motorcycle gang. The gang’s founder and leader Johnny struggles to enforce the rules he’s creating; Benny is his charismatic but dangerously unpredictable follower; Kathy, a no-nonsense outsider to the gang, is alternately fascinated and horrified by the biker lifestyle.
Director Jeff Nichols simultaneously celebrates the biker code of loyalty, courage and independence while providing a clear-eyed if sometimes ironic perspective on how their ‘freedom’ threatens other ways of being in the world. It makes for an old-fashioned (in the positive sense of the word) film, evoking memories of classic American westerns and crime movies.