The Bikeriders - Review Thread

Goodfellas is probably the movie that gets shamelessly ripped of more than almost any movie I can think of to the point where “multi-year crime epics in which you’re guided through a rise and fall through voiceover” is almost a genre unto itself which transcends the similarities to a single film. Jeff Nichols The Bikeriders is one of those movies, looking at a decade or so in the evolution of an outlaw motorcycle gang as it emerges in Chicago during the sixties and early seventies. The film is an adaptation of a non-fiction book by photo-journalist Danny Lyon and the movie is largely structured around an after the fact interview Lyon conducted with a character named Kathy Cross (Jodie Comer), who was married to one of the more cantankerous members of this gang played by Austin Butler and that structure is in some ways equal parts a strength and weakness of the movie. On one hand Comer’s narration (in a thick Illinois accent) is well written and gives a slightly different perspective than you get with a lot of these movies, but as the film goes it’s the gang’s leader played by Tom Hardy who emerges as the most interesting and dynamic character here rather than Austin Butler and you’re kind of seeing him through the eyes of a character who’s twice removed from him. So that’s a bit weird and I’m not sure the film ever really builds up to anything terribly profound but I did mostly like this as something of a hangout movie in a milieu that I haven’t really seen done on film all that often. Director Jeff Nichols successfully gives the movie a lot of good period detail and it’s interesting to see the various rituals of this gang and their dynamic. I’m not sure how accurate some of these accents are but the actors here are mostly doing strong work and I enjoyed my time with it for the most part but it never quite gets beneath the surface with these people and some of these character arcs just don’t go anywhere. Go into it with tempered expectations and there are rewards to be found but its achievements are limited.