Film Review - The Bikeriders (2024)

The Bikeriders is the new film by Jeff Nichols and stars Jodie Comer as Kathy who is being interviewed by a young reporter (Mike Faist) about her time being married to Benny (Austin Butler) who was a member of the Vandals Motorcycle Gang in Chicago in the mid to late 1960’s, the gang is led by Johnny (Tom Hardy) and the gang rides around the area, plays pool and drinks and smokes a lot.

The Bikeriders isn’t a bad film but it’s also one that has been done much much better elsewhere but that said this is firstly a well made film by Nichols who is an underrated director these days, at times you can smell the beer and sweat and cigarette smoke through the camera lens a great credit to him and Adam Stone the cinematographer who also does a good job on the film especially in the nighttime scenes.

The film also has a number of good performances, Hardy is as good as ever and he makes for a good leader of this sometimes wayward group of people, Austin Butler is one of the best young actors working today and that is no exception here even if most of the time I kept thinking “That’s FEYD-RAUTHA” from Dune Part Two while Faist, Comer and Michael Shannon are good as well.

But for much of this movie’s running time I kept thinking back to that much much better film than this one and that is Stone an pioneering Ozploitation film from 1974 that also concerned a motorcycle gang and was so much better than this one it isn’t funny, it has the gang comraderie for sure but it also had much better storytelling, higher stakes and great filmmaking with one stunt in particular being one of the very best I’ve seen any person do on film.

And to be honest I would rent Stone instead of this movie which is okay but nothing much despite it being well made and with good performances, 2 out of 5.