Sydney Film Festival Review - The Bikeriders

 

“I’ve been thinking, I can’t run this club forever. I built this from nothing. This is our family. You and me, kid.”

Stoic, greased-up and gritty, The Bikeriders is a deeply character focused outlaw tale full of bravado intensity and personal tragedy with fantastic performances from Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy and Austin Butler, who combine to bring great depth to the motorcycle mythos of the Midwest. 

Discussion Points:

This is easily Jeff Nichols most commercial film and yet his fingerprints remain all over it. A character piece set in the Midwest following a counter culture oft misunderstood. Based upon and inspired by a photo book compiled by a photographer who traveled with the club during their golden years, The Bikeriders focuses on the brash bravado masculine subculture of a motorcycle club where coolness is constant, yet hot tempers are always present. There’s a constant tension and unease between loyalty and morality and it either tears you apart or you somehow escape it. Hardy is a hardened leader trying to hold his club together as it devolves more and more into a gang. Butler is a stoic fighter, quick to fly off the handle and deeply loyal to his club and his loves. Comer is the glue that holds everything together, as she both narrates and explains the world she is in, and as we see firsthand the emotional ramifications its consequences have on her. The rest of the ensemble are all fantastic as well, filled with memorable larger-than-life characters who demonstrate just how much the club is a family of misfits who belong nowhere else, so they belong together. With beautiful midwestern vistas, roaring motorcycle engines, and some dirty fist fights, the film sits as a time capsule of a bygone era of Americana. Powerfully and tragically character driven, Nichols has delivered a fantastic and deeply empathetic film.