The Bikeriders

 

Writer / director Jeff Nichols' elegy to American motorcycle clubs is about short-tempered manchildren in '60s Chicago, who appear to love their machines -- and one another -- more than their wives and children.

This could easily have been a short-subject film, but Nichols trusts most of his engrossing story (based on a book by Danny Lyons) to the care of one biker wife, Kathy, played by the inestimable Jodie Comer (Killing Eve, The Duel).

Kathy recounts for photojournalist Danny (Mike Faist of The Challengers and West Side Story), who started riding with and documenting the club while a university student, how she met pretty boy / hot head Benny (Austin Butler) and the enigmatic club founder Johnny (Tom Hardy), who was inspired after watching Brando's The Wild One.

Kathy recounts the growth of the club from a ragtag group of brawny misfits and malcontents to a nationwide organization of pretty much the same -- owing much of the expansion to the disaffection of young men of the day and the disillusionment of soldiers returning from Southeast Asia.

Kathy tells of Benny's dogged pursuit of her, his disregard for societal norms and his own personal safety, and the tension within the ranks, between the old crew and the newbies. She tells of Johnny's inability to manage the clashes and Benny's resistance to taking over as head.

Though Kathy is on the periphery of the biker turmoil, she clearly sees how it is affecting the men she's gotten to know perhaps better than they know themselves. She makes the stakes palpable ... and the outcomes for Benny and Johnny seemingly inevitable.

The Bikeriders boasts a large cast of featured players, most prominently Michael Shannon as a grizzly anti-pinko named Zipco, Damon Herriman as Johnny's solid right-hand Brucie, and the young actor Toby Wallace as The Kid, whose anger and ambition affects the future of the club.

Still, this is Comer's picture, thoroughly and unmistakably. She gives an award-winning performance as a woman in love with a man who doesn't seem to know what that really means, and she presses on anyway.