Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

The Bikeriders Blu-ray Movie Review

"Everyone wants to be part of something. I mean that's what it really is. These guys don't belong nowhere else so we belong together, you know."

Reviewed by Justin Dekker August 13, 2024

Inspired by Danny Lyon's book of the same name, Jeff Nichols' 'The Bikeriders' arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal. With a cast that includes Jodie Comer ('Killing Eve'), Austin Butler ('Elvis'), Tom Hardy ('The Dark Knight Rises'), Michael Shannon ('Boardwalk Empire'), and Norman Reedus ('The Walking Dead'), the film recounts events based on Lyon's book, experiences, and hours of recorded interviews as lived by members of a Chicago-based motorcycle club during what Lyon has referred to as "the golden age of motorcycles". The included special features are largely superficial and are easily highlighted by a commentary from Writer/Director Jeff Nichols. A Digital Code redeemable through Movies Anywhere and a slipcover are also included.

Kathy (Jodie Comer) is just a normal Chicago woman leading a normal life until one night when one of her friends asks her to join her at the Stoplight Bar. There, Kathy is immediately immersed in the world of the Vandals motorcycle club with the bar serving as their clubhouse. Definitely a fish out of water, she is constantly hit on and groped by man after man from another world - they don't dress like her, behave like her, or talk like her. But then a figure at the end of a pool table catches her eye; Benny (Austin Butler). Seizing the moment, he joins her at her table, and after initially rebuffing his advances, she joins him on the back of his motorcycle as he and the Vandals go on a late-night ride. In that moment, she fell in love with motorcycles, and soon after, with Benny. But Benny is something of a nihilist, and after he runs afoul of some angry locals outside of the group's normal stomping grounds, he suffers injuries that almost resulted in him losing a foot. While Benny is unfazed, Kathy is distraught and she meets with club leader Johnny (Tom Hardy) to plead for his release from the club. Johnny hears her out patiently, but his ultimate deadpan response boils down to the fact that Benny is a grown man who is going to do what he wants to do. The remainder of the movie, as narrated by Comer's Kathy takes the viewer through a series of vignettes that introduce and flesh out the most important members of Vandals until the film concludes in or around 1973.

The film is an interesting and swirling mix of fact and fiction. The characters were based on real people as photographed, interviewed, and recorded by Lyon. Though the title card at the start of the film indicates that he did this work between 1965 and 1973, in actuality his project ran from 1963 to 1967. While the film portrays Danny as a clean-cut college-aged young man who is by every measure not an outsider, the reality is again quite different. The real Danny Lyon had graduated from college and didn't just follow the motorcycle club the Vandals (in actuality it was the Outlaws) Lyon was a member and rode with them. Many of the monologues that characters deliver in the film are derived from Lyon's taped interviews, oftentimes with little or no editing, though sometimes for the sake of the story they are assigned to different characters or are delivered in different settings, such as Brucie's statement that they are all misfits and therefore belong together which were spoken by someone else, and Zipco's tale of the draft board which he tells by a campfire in the movie but was actually recorded when he was in the hospital.

The plot of The Bikeriders is Nichols' own creation. At its core, Nichols posits it's a love story of sorts, with Benny (Austin Butler) being torn between his love for Kathy (Jodie Comer) and his love for the Vandals motorcycle club as embodied and made manifest by Johnny (Tom Hardy) making for a rather unusual love triangle. In most films with two entities vying for the love of the same person, there is no shortage of clash and tension. That's frequently not the case here. Kathy and Benny rarely have any conversation about her desire for him to leave the club. Even when he's badly beaten, the conversation between the two is brief and far from heated. When she meets with Johnny to ask him to let Benny go, Johnny never even comes close to raising his voice with the mildly emotional Kathy, relying on the position that Benny is a grown man who can make his own decisions. He doesn't forbid him leaving. He doesn't even try to make a case with her as to why it makes sense for them both for Benny to remain in the club. His demeanor and his statements distill down to que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be. For his part, even though he says he loves Kathy, the fact that Benny would always choose the club over Kathy is never a question. Johnny's desire for Benny to succeed him as club president, while it could and should have generated some heated or at least impassioned discussions is again rather sedate with a mellow Johnny's request met with Benny's rather stoic "I'm not your guy" retort. Benny simply wants to be in the club, have Kathy, and have none of the responsibility and neither Kathy nor Johhny seem keen on pushing him too hard.

Clash and tension are also typically key elements for a film or television series based on a group like a motorcycle club. Here as well though, in Nichols' The Bikeriders clash and tension on this front are likewise absent. The bulk of the film feels listless as it wanders between locations, events, and characters providing a fictionalized and overly romanticized glimpse of a people, a lifestyle, and a time lost to history. As he wrote in the preface to one of the reprints of his book The Bikeriders focuses on what Lyon considered to be "the golden age of motorcycles", and his affection for and identification with the subject matter has clearly been transferred to Nichols and it shines through in every shot of the film. Each of the veteran members is portrayed as a loveable rogue. Funny Sonny (Norman Reedus) elects not to mercilessly beat a current member of the Vandals who deserted the Hell's Angels although that's what he was sent to do. Johnny does not retaliate against a would-be member who cuts him with a knife. Even when the club commits its most egregious crime, arson, we don't actually see them set the fire but instead, simply bask in the warm glow of the flames once the building is fully ablaze. As with it's portrayal of Lyon, The Bikeriders feels strangely sanitized, with the men in the club mostly content to simply ride their bikes and get drunk, with any illegal or questionable activities hinted at or suggested, but rarely shown. At the film's start, Kathy complains that meeting Benny caused her to visit more jails, be in more courts, and meet more lawyers, than she thought possible, but we see none of it. Neither do we see the lives of the members outside of the club, though clearly each of Johnny's crew has jobs as electricians, truck drivers, and the like. Without seeing these other sides of the characters, they are as thin and stereotypical as Johnny's own desire to pattern his look and manner after Brando in The Wild Ones. Later, when Johnny and his friends talk about how the club is changing with the influx of new members and chapters, we see precious little evidence to that fact, just some high-level comments from the veterans about how they can't relate to the new guys and a quick shot of Johnny seeing a man shooting up heroin at a party.

The fact that Lyon's book had a substantial impact on the look of the film is beyond question. Nichols and cinematographer Adam Stone went to great lengths to recreate photos from the book in the film. Those sticking around through the end credits will be treated to several black-and-white images which provided the real-life inspiration for certain shots and scenes in the film. Once the film was completed, after a phone conversation with the real Benny, Lyon discovered that one of the most iconic pictures from the book and memorably recreated here of Benny with his head down and gripping the rails of a pool table, wasn't actually Benny at all. The tattoos on the arms, the real Benny says, are wrong, and it wasn't him. While this may be the case, it's a fantastic picture and the stylized recreation here is a powerful moment in the film. Lyon's recorded interviews also aided the film's production beyond scriptwriting. Star and narrator Jodie Comer made a conscious decision to base her accent on the taped interviews with the real Kathy rather than simply doing a Chicago accent. In spending some time listening to the actual audio recordings of the interview that serves as Kathy's introduction to the film audience, it's fair to say that she captures and recreates that voice quite well.

For a film boasting a cast containing Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, and Norman Reedus, with style and obvious nostalgia to spare, it's surprising that it doesn't pack a harder and more visceral punch. The Bikeriders almost feels like the cinematic equivalent of walking through a museum. Glimpses of these personalities and events from the past are shown as the film essentially moves from exhibit to exhibit. Images or artifacts may depict clash, violence, or chaos, but they are merely flashes, suggested, and not truly experienced or recreated. They don't adequately capture or convey emotion. As a document intent on romanticizing a lifestyle and a time lost forever, the film succeeds. As a film set on crafting a compelling narrative with protagonists, antagonists, conflict, and dramatic tension, it never shifts out of third gear.

The Bikeriders Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Bikeriders looks very good on Blu-ray. Shot on film with Millenium XL2 cameras and Panovision G series lenses the image looks natural and filmic. The color palette has a slightly sepia push which helps to create a vintage essence, warmth, and ambiance. The 1080p presentation provides a high level of detail allowing viewers to inspect the various patches the Vandals wear and appreciate the work done by costumers to age them and provide an authentic appearance. Wear, age, and road rash are all visible on the member's leather jackets. Facial particulars are readily apparent, including smudges of grease, stubble, and scraggly beards on the Vandals, and make-up and fine lines on Comer's Kathy. Depth and dimensionality are Blacks are typically deep and satisfying but can occasionally fall victim to crush. Skin tones look healthy and true. Environmental particulars are generally finely detailed in close-up and mid-range shots, but can suffer in longer shots such as when Benny runs out of gas around the 18-minute mark. Grain, while normally fine and resolving naturally, sometimes veers into noisy and blocky territory, which isn't necessarily distracting, but is noticeable.

The Bikeriders Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Bikeriders sports a very impressive Dolby Atmos audio track. Critical to the audio presentation is a substantial bass presence that allows the rumbling procession of motorcycles to felt as well as heard, and adds the needed depth to sound effects like punches, crashes, and gunshots. Music, critical to add emotion and place the film in its era, is handled with excellent precision and fidelity. Dialogue is handled well and is cleanly rendered. It's typically appropriately located front and center, and as the film is very dialogue-heavy, it's always properly prioritized. Directionality is wonderful and objects, most frequently motorcycles move smoothly and fluidly through the sound field. Moments of immersion are frequent with surrounds being employed to place the viewer in the middle of parties, bars, races, and other on-screen action. It's an excellent track that handles the film's quiet and most raucous moments with equal aplomb.

The Bikeriders Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Bikeriders comes outfitted with a small selection of on-disc supplemental material. Offerings include:

• Johnny, Benny, & Kathy (4.56) - Austin Bulter, Jodie Comer, and Jeff Nichols discuss turning Danny Lyon's book into a film, working together, accents, and other topics.

• The Era of 'The Bikeriders' (3.22) - Jeff Nichols, Austin Butler, Emory Cohen, and Jodie Comer talk about the vintage bikes and the vintage and recreated clothing and accessories used in the film, as well as getting the cast comfortable riding motorcycles.

• The Filmmaker's Eye: Jeff Nichols (2.57) - Nichols talks about his passion and vision for the project while members of the cast share comments about their experience working on the film and with Nichols.

• Feature Commentary with Writer/Director Jeff Nichols - Over the film's runtime, Nichols discusses his love of the book that serves as inspiration for the project, his reason for selecting Kathy (Jodie Comer) as the narrator for the film, music selection, location scouting and a variety of other topics. He is clearly working without a script here and can occasionally fall silent, but he's largely engaged and informative. It's an interesting listen.

The Bikeriders Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

With an all-star cast headlined by Jodie Comer and Austin Butler, The Bikeriders rumbles onto Blu-ray with a solid 1080p transfer and a winning Dolby Atmos track. While lacking dramatic tension and significant forward momentum, the picture does an admirable job of bringing Danny Lyon's book to life as it recreates and chronicles the lives and the lifestyle of the colorful characters that haunt its pages. It's an intimate if overly romanticized depiction of a piece of America that no longer exists. Fans of Lyon's book will no doubt wish to give the film a look, though fans of motorcycle films may find what's on display here to be more tepid than other entrants in the genre. It's more of a historical document and a vibe to be experienced. The Bikeriders 4K comes recommended on the strength of Comer's performance, the film's abundant style, and the technical merits of the presentation.