The Bikeriders review, early biker culture and Jodie Comer

Danny Lyon took photographs and recorded interviews with a biker club in Chicago in the 1960s. The Bikeriders was the book that came from that effort. And now the book is a movie also called The Bikeriders. The film recreates many of the photographs. The actors look similar to the people in the book with matching costumes and appearance.

Jodie Comer plays Kathy in The Bikeriders. Comer used recordings of the real Kathy to get her voice and accent right. As usual, Jodie Comer nails the accent. Kathy is the narrator of this story about men and motorcycles.

Johnny (Tom Hardy) is the man who started the motorcycle club. It was meant to be a community of friends, nothing more. As the idea grew and became popular, the membership grew and expanded to other cities. The club turned into more of a gang of outlaws and lawbreakers, although that wasn’t what it was meant to be in the beginning.

Kathy enters the story when she sees the good looking Benny (Austin Butler) in a bar one night. She rides off with him on the back of his motorcycle and marries him just weeks later. He becomes part of the motorcycle club. The culture in this film is what was called “the golden age of motorcycles.”

As the club grew and changed Johnny tried to get Benny to take it over. He refused. When trouble arose Benny simply took off, leaving Kathy behind.

People got hurt and killed as the culture around motorcycles changed. For a long time, motorcycles were associated with gangs. Now, in the 2020s, the culture is different again. Now it’s big fitted out bikes with radios and space for the wife on the back. Everyone is in a helmet and protective gear. The bikes feature big windshields and polite riders who aren’t looking for trouble.

There were many, many men in the film. The faces I recognized included Michael Shannon, Boyd Holbrook, and Norman Reedus.

The Bikeriders is really a story of men and their friendships. Not something I normally would have watched if it weren’t for Jodie Comer being in the cast. Even though she was the glue holding the story together, it was still a men’s tale.

I recognize that the film skillfully represented a specific moment in time, in a particular place and with a particular set of characters. Sadly, I wasn’t impressed by anything about the film. There’s a demographic for this story, but I’m not it. If you are that demographic, I invite you to share your ideas about the film in the comments below. You can see the film on Peacock.