Taking place in the late 60s and the early 70s, The Bikeriders tells the story of The Vandals Motorcycle Club.

The Vandals were founded by Johnny (Tom Hardy), a truck driver who got the idea for starting his own motorcycle gang after catching a late night broadcast of The Wild One.  Under Johnny’s strong leadership, the Vandals quickly grow and soon, branches are opening up across the country.  Of the many members of the Vandals, the most charismatic is Benny (Austin Butler), a quiet and enigmatic man who loves his motorcycle and who seems to have the worst luck when it comes to crashing and getting caught by the police.  If Johnny epitomizes the leadership needed to successfully start a motorcycle club in the first place, Benny epitomizes the coolness of being a rebel and doing your own thing.  Everyone in the club wants to be like Benny, even if the majority of them have more in common with the simple-minded Cockroach (Emory Cohen) or the eccentric Zipco (Michael Shannon).  The fatalistic Johnny knows that he can’t remain in charge forever and he views Benny as his heir apparent.  However, Benny’s feelings about the whole thing are far more difficult to decipher.  As the Vandals themselves grow increasingly more violent and hostile and as lowbrow criminals like The Kid (Toby Wallace) step up to challenge Johnny’s power, both Benny and Johnny are forced to confront the reality of what The Vandals have become.

Watching The Bikeriders is a frustrating experience, especially for those of us who have enjoy director Jeff Nichols’s other films.  It’s a good movie but it never quite becomes the great movie that it so obviously wants to be.  On the plus side, both Austin Butler and Tom Hardy give excellent performance as Benny and Johnny.  Both characters serve as archetypes for a uniquely American style of masculinity and Hardy and Butler bring them to life as both symbols and as human beings.  Tom Hardy, especially, captures the tragic dignity of a man who knows that his fate has already been set.  Wisely, Butler and Hardy both underplay their characters.  Neither Johnny nor Benny are the types to normally show their emotions, which makes their rare moments of vulnerability all the more powerful. If nothing else, The Bikeriders serves as a reminder that both Butler and Hardy are legitimate movie stars, along with being excellent actors.

Unfortunately, the film suffers due to an awkward framing device, in which Benny’s wife, Kathy (Jodie Comer), is interviewed by photographer and writer Danny Lyon (Mike Faist).  Kathy serves as the audience surrogate.  We learn about the Vandals through her eyes and she’s the one explains to us all of the ins-and-outs of Vandal culture.  Unfortunately, Kathy is a bit of an underwritten character and her relationship with Benny never feels convincing.  Unlike Hardy and Butler, Jodie Comer never lets you forget that she’s a performer giving a performance.  Much like Meryl Streep in The Laundromat and Don’t Look Up, Comer gives the type of bad and mannered performance that could really only come from an otherwise good actress.  Whenever the viewer starts to get emotionally involved with the story, director Jeff Nichols cuts back to Lyon staring reverently at Kathy while Kathy prattles on in dialogue that tries so hard to sound authentic that it ultimately makes the whole thing feel artificial.

Just as he did in Take Shelter and Mud, Nichols attempts to capture the unique mythology of the Midwest in The Bikeriders.  Occasionally, he succeeds.  The scene where Benny outruns the cops, just to discover that his motorcycle has run out of gas, serves as evidence of just how good a director Jeff Nichols can be.  But, in the end, The Bikeriders is never quite as strong, moving, or insightful about outlaw culture as it wants to be.  It’s a good film but it’s hard not to feel that it could have been so much more.