Jeff Nichols’ first film since 2016’s critically lauded Loving, had a difficult time making its way to theaters. The Bikeriders premiered at the Telluride Film Festival last year and was going to be released in the fall by Searchlight Pictures, but was taken off the release schedule due to the SAG and WGA strikes, and then was taken off the Searchlight website altogether, and it was reported that New Regency Enterprises, the film’s financier, was shopping the film to rival studios after being dropped by Searchlight (Disney). Focus Features (Universal) snatched up American distribution rights to the film, releasing it the week after Father’s Day weekend, which seems like a curious choice, as it would have done excellent business over that weekend.

Alas, Jeff Nichols has made a very entertaining, very old-fashioned crowd-pleasing yarn about American masculinity in the 1960s in the form of rival biker gangs. 

In the mid 1960s Midwest, we follow the rise of the Vandals MC, an outlaw motorcycle club in Chicago, and learn about the lives of its members and their relationships through a journalist (Mike Faist) interviewing Kathy (Jodie Comer), the wife of club member Benny (Austin Butler). We learn how his role escalated in the club, his relationship with his mentor Johnny (Tom Hardy), how it all got out of hand, and the violent turns it took. We also learn how the club grew, sprouting chapters in various other cities. Eventually the group becomes an organized crime syndicate, resulting in lots of drug dealing and violence.

Austin Butler continues to prove himself a very talented performer, giving more than the film really needs of him. He can do the charming, magnetic badass thing in his sleep, but Butler is often adding interesting nuances in his performance, beyond what’s on the page. He’s continued to impress me ever since his star-making role in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, and he’s been smart about the roles he’s taken since then. Between this and his role in Dune Part Two, Butler is displaying more range than I would have originally given him credit for, and I look forward to where he goes from here.

Jodie Comer is great, and is nailing some very challenging accent work. She’s kind of the heart of the movie, and we see most of it through her perspective. She’s also taken interesting work since her breakout role in BBC’s Killing Eve, and this character does not at all resemble anyone else she’s played. I always like when an actress has that chameleonic thing going on, and Comer’s career will have some serious longevity if she keeps this up. Tom Hardy is also excellent here, also having fun with a difficult accent, but you get the idea he lives for that kind of challenge at this point.

The cinematography by Nichols’ usual DP Adam Stone is great, he really makes this look like a movie that was made in that era, and the score by another frequent Nichols collaborator David Wingo is also very good. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the framing device where the entire movie is people being interviewed, and the story unfolding through flashbacks. But that becomes less of a problem the more the movie progresses, and the more I got used to it. And I always enjoy watching Mike Faist, so I was pleased to see his character pop up periodically throughout the proceedings.

Did I find myself emotionally invested in anything going on here? Not particularly. You’ve seen this kind of story unfold in many other movies. It wants to be a quasi-Goodfellas type narrative, and it makes it to that level some of the time. It’s breezy and entertaining enough to not get bogged down in any specific point for very long. As a study of American masculinity in the 1960s, it doesn’t bring a great deal of new insight or observations you haven’t seen in other movies. And it probably won’t be enough to get you to go on a Wikipedia deep dive about what was and wasn’t true about these people. And yet, The Bikeriders is a very well-made and well-acted adult drama, and it was fun to see this kind of film with a crowd. So, I would recommend checking it out in a theater. Take your dad.