Review of 'The Bikeriders': Austin Butler evokes the genius of the 60s

In the mid-1960s, photojournalist Danny Lyon joined the Outlaws Motorcycle Club in suburban Chicago, taking portraits and candid photographs while interviewing members of the gang. The result was a book of photographs called “The Bikeriders,” published in 1968, which served as inspiration for director Jeff Nichols' last film of the same name, a meditation on American motorcycle culture, the cradle of a certain type of cool.

Nichols is clearly enchanted by the inimitable style and intoxicating tradition that Lyon's photographs evoke, and he populates his cinematic Chicago-based motorcycle club, renamed the Vandals, with a coterie of ruggedly handsome stars who can make the sideburns and the motor oil look good, including Tom. Hardy, Austin Butler, Norman Reedus, Beau Knapp, Boyd Holbrook, Emory Cohen and Damon Herriman. There are also some unexpected and welcome casting choices, including Karl Glusman and young Australian actor Toby Wallace, who is fantastic as a young Vandals hopeful.

As the enigmatic Benny, Butler's supernova star quality is undeniable, and the film begins with a bourbon and an explosion: a shovel to the back of his head during a bar fight that will haunt the rest of the film. In this piece of cinematic bravery, Nichols demonstrates a deft style and rhythmic musicality that instantly draws us into this world.

The next time we see Benny, he's hulking over a pool table in a bar, his long golden arms and disheveled blonde bonnet swept over by the covetous gaze of Kathy (Jodie Comer), who stops for a drink. and leaves with a lifelong lover. . Nichols' camera hungrily eats up Butler, every inch of faded denim and worn leather; every soulful pout and blood-spattered smile wordlessly seducing Kathy to the dark side. It's no wonder Kathy's boyfriend gets over him as soon as Benny shows up on the sidewalk, and it's no wonder Kathy revolves her life around her brooding new boyfriend and his clan of grease-stained miscreants.

Kathy becomes our narrator, her Midwestern rhythm adding a layer of percussion to the roar of the engines and the plaintive croon of '60s rock 'n' roll on the soundtrack. In a rapid-fire Chicago cadence expertly enunciated by Liverpool actor and accent master Comer, Kathy tells stories about the boys into the microphone of photographer Lyon (Mike Faist). She is the observing eyewitness and keeper of her oral history, although our narrator potentially misses, confuses, or exaggerates the details. We see them through her eyes: sexy, dirty, violent, and often tragic.

We also see them through recreations of Lyon's photographs, which Nichols and veteran cinematographer Adam Stone painstakingly compose and set in motion. In a montage, we see Lyon taking portraits of the likes of Cockroach (Cohen), Wahoo (Knapp), and Corky (Glusman), or capturing candid photos of the gang from the back of a bike. We see an image of a relaxed Benny riding on a bridge, with one hand gesturing lazily behind him. Nichols improves on Lyon's shot by having his subject face the camera, rather than away.

Watching “The Bikeriders” is like flipping through a photobook filled with dazzling compositions and story fragments, and Nichols' script also has a snapshot, sketchy quality. The film is an evocation of character, place and time, the tempo alternating between moody and lively, like our central odd couple, the laconic Benny and the garrulous Kathy.

Kathy has a lot to say about Benny, although we rarely see his unique qualities in action. He's somewhat underwritten, and while Butler has the larger-than-life presence to inhabit the iconic image, Kathy takes up all the air in the script. Benny is reduced to a kind of symbol, a visual emblem of the dangerous glamor of the hooligans. Their mutual attraction is initially palpable, but we don't see the glue that holds them together over the years of danger and partying. The mysterious Benny has more chemistry with Johnny (Hardy), the founder and leader of the Vandals, as does Kathy.

Hardy is typically fantastical and fantastically strange, and emerges as the gravitational center, not only of the Vandals, but of the film itself. Johnny leads his own instinctive code based on personal whims and values, which becomes harder to enforce as the club grows, with veterans returning from Vietnam seeking camaraderie and bringing darker vices.

“The Bikeriders” is a great pastime until the party is over and it's time to hit the road. Although the dramatic thrust of the narrative is never entirely coherent, there is much pathos, and the ebb and flow reflects both life itself and the uniquely human nature of the narrative, as Kathy regales us with stories of these wild beings, now living with the sound of roaring engines only haunting his memories.

Katie Walsh is a film critic for the Tribune News Service.