Yesterday, my wife suggested we go see a new movie during its opening weekend. It was The Bikeriders featuring a stellar cast fronted by Tom Hardy, Austin Butler and Jody Comer – who is solely responsible for holding the movie together and making it vaguely watchable. Astronomical summer had just been declared and every summer needs its blockbuster movie. Unfortunately this one is not it, but it does deserve to be seen by everyone.
And the film viewing public is beyond fickle. There were less than a dozen in the entire theater, how can the arts survive without the patronage of the public? No wonder Hollywood executives continue to churn out remake after remake or spinoff after spinoff in TV Land (that’s right NCIS – I’m talkin’ about you!) This summer we revisit Bad Boys and Beverly Hills Cop with their original and aged stars. And remakes of Twister and The Crow. So when an original movie comes along, I’m happy to support it. Especially one that actually runs under 2 hours because it didn’t need more screen time. And is not about Super Heroes.
The Bikeriders attempts to be an authentic portrayal of a midWestern motorcycle riding club that takes place in the late 1960s through to the early 1970s with much of its arresting visuals inspired by Danny Lyon’s 1968 photobook of the same name when he spent a year as a member of the Outlaw’s Motorcycle Club.
I wanted very much to like the movie and there are some beautifully constructed scenes. But there is no story. It reminds me strongly of my reaction watching Marlon Brando’s The Wild One. Even though I was only a child, I already felt the plot and the events in the movie somewhat preposterous. Evidently not the director of The Bikeriders since he clearly wants his movie to be a homage to The Wild One and even has Johnny (Tom Hardy), the leader of the Vandals, be inspired to form his riding club after watching The Wild One on TV.
But instead of a thoughtful movie delving into the world of bike culture we get served up stereotype after stereotype from even the opening scene. Benny (Austin Butler) is the violent yet handsome loner who for some unfathomable reason is drinking alone in a unfriendly dive bar where he gets assaulted for wearing his club colors. But by two working class guys who don’t appear to belong to a rival club so where’s the offense? Benny seems to be a refreshingly nonviolent Buddhist who doesn’t put up any resistance to the beating, until he withdraws a knife from his riding boot and slashes one of his attackers in the face and likely blinding him in the process. He then gets his ankle broken in retaliation and cannot ride for months. The Vandals force the bar owner to disclose the names of the attackers, but then burn down his bar anyway without the movie ever addressing whether they went after Benny’s attackers. Perhaps that was left on the editing room floor.
At least the movie makes the attempt at erasing the public perception that all motorcycle clubs are criminal gangs. In the beginning, the original members of the Vandals are partly comprised of working class men with wives and families. Although we never meet Johnny’s family and his wife is given a terrible one line of dialog asking him to bring some eggs home, this on the last night that she will see him alive. This was the opportunity to explain bike culture to the general populace, but it was squandered. The exhilaration of riding, the universal camaraderie shared amongst all bikers, the expectations of traveling to new places and the social albeit tiring discourse discussing … bikes – none of this was contemplated.
Scenes were filled with lots of drinking and posturing but little dialog. Real motorcyclists don’t drink because real motorcyclists don’t want to crash. Ever. And while in real life the conversation is rarely sparkling, the script could have had members discussing issues in their own lives instead of acting like juvenile fraternity brothers with moronic IQs.
And then when surprising snippets of dialog are introduced, they fly well above the comprehension of the general audience and their impact is completely lost. Cal, the gifted mechanic of the club discusses how he has modified his Harley Davidson V-Twin engine with a higher lift camshaft to produce more power but he can now only kick start the bike with the physical help of his 300 lb friend. This is completely authentic dialog. I used to struggle to kick start my high compression BSA single which had a cylinder displacement similar to each of the pair in the Harley Davidsons ridden in the movie. This was also the worst era for the company after it had been sold to a sports equipment manufacturing concern and suffered massive employee layoffs and decline in manufacturing quality. Yet not once did any of the members have difficulty starting their bikes, each one came alive after a single full weighted kick.
Then the movie has Benny running out of gas while being chased by the police. Surely, Harley Davidson motorcycles have a reserve setting on their fuel tank petcock like every other motorcycle in the world of that era.
Zipco has a dialog ranting about his hatred for Commies (played by the ever reliable Michael Shannon) and Pinkos who turn out to be all college students because they are suspect for not making a living working with their hands. Now, there is more than a kernel of truth to his sentiments. So much so that I’m inclined to endorse his position except Zipco was described earlier as a Latvian. Frankly, its impossible for a person who lost his country to the Soviets to fundamentally misunderstand the definition of a Communist.
And then the movie makes so little use of Norman Reedus cast as Funny Sonny. Norman is the absolute real deal as a bike enthusiast with his own show about bike culture yet he is unrecognizable in the movie and is comically employed at the end as a sidewalk attraction promoting the new movie Easy Rider, actually frightening away prospective movie goers with his wild biker antics.
Membership of the Vandals continue to expand as new chapters are created in other cities and younger members join the original club. But these new members are Vietnam war vets who are more interested in hard core drugs than drinking. And the criminal activities that go along with securing the sources of these drugs. OK, but the public hostility towards returning vets and their untreated PTSD is not explored and they are just dismissed as young violent members that the original members simply cannot understand as the folly of an unbridgeable generation gap.
3 out of 5 stars
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