The Bikeriders  ★★★

A NEW film from American director Jeff Nicholls is always an event.

They don’t come around too often – his last, Loving, was in 2016.

The Bikeriders is a fictional drama that also serves as part examination/part tribute to America’s motorcycle culture.

Why motorcycle clubs formed? What type of person joined them? And how clubs have changed over the years are key questions and aspects of history considered through Nicholl’s dramatic narrative.

The script is based on a series of interviews and a pictorial book that depicted a critical evolutionary period from the late 1960s to early ‘70s.

In the book, the club portrayed was the Outlaws. In the film it’s the Chicago-based Vandals, formed and led by the brooding Johnny whose inspiration is Marlon Brando’s character of the same name from the 1953 film The Wild One. He’s played by Tom Hardy.

Aside from Johnny, there are two other key characters – Austin Butler’s Benny, whose role model is more James Dean, and Benny’s partner Kathy (Jodie Comer) who serves as a form of narrator in talking to the student who eventually produced the pictorial book.

The club established and run by Johnny is initially a product of individual rebellion; people, mainly men, who felt they didn’t quite fit into ordinary life and society.

They weren’t criminals by nature, but the rules by which they lived at the club caused them to sometimes do criminal things, like avenging a bashing and burning down a pub.

But by the film’s later stage, Johnny is starting to lose control and chapters emerging in other places are accepting and enabling types of people Johnny would have rejected, including outright thugs, hard drug users and disturbed Vietnam War veterans.

There are great locations and a strong sense of the time and locale.

While there are certainly dramatic moments, one involving Comer’s character being the stand-out, they don’t involve suspenseful build-ups and as a result much of the film lacks full emotional impact.

The leads are all good, particularly Comer, but I also enjoyed the myriad of supporting characters played by the likes of Nicholls’ favourite Michael Shannon, Boyd Holbrook, Paul Sparks and Norman Reedus.

There are also two Australians in key roles – Damon Harriman as Johnny’s right hand man and Toby Wallace as a young upstart.

Wallace was born in England but grew up in Oz and I think he will eventually be a star. Watch Babyteeth for further evidence.

Not Nicholl’s best film, (my vote is still Midnight Special, but  well made and thoroughly watchable.

Watched at the cinema