“The Bikeriders” effectively pulls you into the American motorcycle culture of the 1960s with style and grit.
We get leather-clad men on two-wheeled beasts. We get the deep, guttural revving of engines. We get killer tunes such as Cream’s “I Feel Free.”
On top of that, this latest film from talented writer-director Jeff Nichols — the auteur of acclaimed films “Take Shelter” (2011), “Mud” (2012) and “Loving” (2016) — boasts appealing stars in Jodie Comer, Austin Butler and a terrific Tom Hardy, as well as a strong supporting cast.
Too bad it’s only vaguely interested in telling a story.
The fictional saga of motorcycle club the Vandals, “The Bikeriders” is inspired by photojournalist Danny Lyon’s late-1960s book of the same name that chronicled the exploits of the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club, a work of which Nichols has been a fan for two decades.
As structured by Nichols, with photojournalist Danny in and out of the story conducting interviews, the film plays as if what Nichols may actually have preferred to have made was a documentary about the Outlaws MC.
In this drama, Nichols examines our need to belong to something, to find identity with others with a similar passion, for better or for worse. (It shouldn’t come as much of a spoiler to hear that it’s increasingly for worse in “The Bikeriders.”) He accomplishes this in a relatively entertaining film, but you can’t shake the feeling that he could have done it more effectively had he taken a few bigger narrative swings.
“The Bikeriders” is plagued by an unmistakable lack of urgency in its storytelling.
To the degree there is a tale here, it is the journey of strong-silent-type Vandals member Benny (Butler) and the battle for his soul between his girlfriend, Kathy (Comer), and the club’s leader, Johnny (Tom Hardy), who adores Benny AT LEAST as much as she does.
And she adores him plenty, first taking note of him in a bar and subsequently — and after being warned to stay away from him by a fellow female — visibly being taken aback by him firing up his bike, the rear of which she soon mounts.
Her waiting boyfriend isn’t exactly pleased when Benny drops her off at her house. To make matters worse, Benny circles back, stopping on the other side of the road.
He sits on his bike across from the house.
And stares.
And smokes.
All night.
It’s hard to think of the last movie that features as much smoking as does “The Bikeriders,” which also showcases plenty of drinking.
Of course, it finds room for violence, such as when Benny is attacked in a bar for refusing to take off his Vandals jacket and the requisite retributive raining down of hell by Johnny that follows.
Along with the tug of war for Benny — although initially seduced by the club’s general rebelliousness, Kathy comes to want Benny to free himself of it so the two can have what she sees as a real future — Nichols introduces a character known only as The Kid (Toby Wallace), who seeks Vandals membership for himself and his bike-riding young pals. Given his ultimate importance, The Kid is underserved from a character-development standpoint by Nichols, even as we check in with him from time to time.
In his impressionistic portrait of this culture, Nichols offers us myriad colorful men with equally colorful names, such as Cockroach (Emory Cohen), Corky (Karl Glusman), Cal (Boyd Holbrook), Brucie (Damon Herriman), Wahoo (Beau Knapp) and Funny Sonny (motorcycle enthusiast Norman Reedus of “The Walking Dead” universe), who rides in from California to settle an old score but instead settles into the group.
And then there’s the, let’s say, pontificating Zipco, portrayed with gusto by the great Michael Shannon, star of Nichols’ aforementioned “Take Shelter.”
The two actors who get top billing do not add as much as you’d hope to “The Bikeriders.” “Elvis” and “Masters of the Air” star Butler is able to do little more than to look extremely cool as the underwritten Benny. And while she is dynamic on the series “Killing Eve,” English actress Comer, whose big-screen credits include “Free Guy,” leans so hard into a try-hard Chicago (we … think?) accent that it never ceases to be distracting.
Fortunately, Hardy (“The Dark Knight Rises,” “Venom”) is there to pick up the slack. No one does crazy-and-violent with quite the sumptuous subtlety of Hardy, and that gift is on display here.
“Fists?” Johnny asks quietly more than once when he is challenged by another man for leadership of the Vandals. “Or knives?”
Hardy is so delightful, in fact, that, along with all of its fuel-injected, rock-powered style, “The Bikeriders” earns AT LEAST a tepid recommendation.
There may not be much of a story here, but Johnny, Benny, Funny Sonny and the rest are a pretty fun hang — even if you know in your heart you would never find that desired sense of belonging with them.
‘The Bikeriders’
Where: Theaters.
When: June 21.
Rated: R for language throughout, violence, some drug use and brief sexuality.
Runtime: 1 hour, 56 minutes.
Stars (of four): 2.5.
