Tom Hardy, Jodie Comer and Austin Butler lead the new film from Jeff Nichols, The Bikeriders. Hereās our review.
I’m not the first person to notice that Jeff Nichols’ new film, The Bikeriders, wears its Goodfellas influences very much on its sleeve. Opening effectively with a straight-up homage to Martin Scorsese’s 1990’s masterpiece, there’s an argument that what Nichols has put together here is effectively a Goodfellas story on motorbikes. I don’t think that’s really the case, but you can see the argument.
For me, he’s made something of a western, with a three way relationship – not like that – at the heart of it.
Taking inspiration from a book I’ve not seen, Danny Lyons’ primarily photography-based tome of the same name, Nichols first of all introduces us to Austin Butler’s Benny. Presented with barely a mutter of dialogue, Benny soon becomes part of a motorcycle club set up by Tom Hardy’s Johnny. And in the midst of them is Kathy, the narrator of the piece, played by Jodie Comer.
The film then follows these three characters, and the gang of bikers around them, as time passes and times change. Working from his own script, Nichols has always been adept at spending his budget wisely and here – with his largest canvas – he invests in human beings, and plenty of them. He stacks his supporting cast with people who could comfortably lead a production of their own, names such as Norman Reedus, Boyd Holbrook and the peerless Michael Shannon. What it lends The Bikeriders is a feeling of gravitas and substance. Actors don’t get to make films like these very often, and within 20 minutes, it’s entirely understandable why they all turned up.
Nichols takes his time with the film, as comfortable holding a silence and letting his camera do the work as he is filling the screen with action. The violence and harder edges when they come are brutal, effective, and impactful. And even though there’s a continuing sense of Nichols borrowing from other films – I couldn’t help but think of Carlito’s Way at one point, and the sunshine streaming in through the windows of a bar bears the influence of umpteen westerns – there’s enough identity here to make it work.
What there isn’t is that much story. This is more character study, a passage of time, sometimes lacking urgency and relying on the audience being happy to sit around with this bunch of people (which, personally, I was). But then we’ll get a moment outside where the camera absorbs a lens full of motorbikes eating up the road, and it’s, in a non-demonstrative way, really cinematic.

Suggested product
Film Stories issue 53 gift bundle: Magazine + Nic Cage scratch poster + Nic Cage coasters!
£30.00

The glue is Jodie Comer. Her performance as Kathy I’d put as the strongest here, although Austin Butler – his first post-Elvis role – runs her close. Tom Hardy meanwhile picks his accent and chews it accordingly. Hardy has sheer presence in front of a camera, and his character has an undercurrent of loneliness that he guards. You could rightly conclude that the key trio at the heart of the film are very well cast.
In a traditional sense, perhaps the stakes of The Bikeriders aren’t particularly high. But again, I’m all for that. As much as it made me want to watch Goodfellas again by the end, I found The Bikeriders an absorbing drama, and something of an endangered species on the big screen too.