The Bikeriders feeds on the idealized idea of ​​the cyclist, but its romance does not last.

Jeff Nichols’ new film peels away the stereotype layer by layer, revealing generational frustrations, class struggle, the need to belong, outcast trauma, toxic masculinity and the inevitable path to violence as ideals turn to ash.

Tom Hardy, Austin Butler and Jodie Comer form a winning trio in this captivating mix of 20th-century asphalt western and brutal crime drama, inspired by Danny Lyon’s 1968 photo book of the same name.

It’s the coolest movie of the year, even if it runs out of fuel slightly towards the end.

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Set between 1965 and 1973, The Bikeriders follows a Midwestern motorcycle club known as The Vandals. The group was founded by father-of-two Johnny (Hardy), who got the idea from Marlon Brando’s seminal biker movie The Wild One on TV.

Who wouldn’t want to be Brando’s badass, leather-clad antihero? Ask Michael Cera’s Wally in Twin Peaks: The Return.

Johnny surrounds himself with an unexpectedly sweet group of friends, who, like him, have been rejected from society: the easy-going mechanic Cal (Boyd Holbrook), the insect-eating prankster Cockroach (Emory Cohen), the menacing yet profound Zipco (Michael Shannon), the ever-loyal Brucie (Damon Herriman) and the crazy Funny Sonny (Norman Reedus from The Walking Dead).

The main narrator in this story, however, is non-biker Kathy (Comer), who falls madly in love with the most mysterious and rebellious member of The Vandals, Benny (Butler). “It can’t be love, it must be stupidity,” she says, because “stupidity” leads her to become tied to these wild but mostly melancholic cyclists.

At the center of The Bikeriders is a triangle that is not fueled solely by love, but rather by desire and expectations.

Kathy wants Benny to settle down and become a family man. Johnny wants Benny to be his successor in leading The Vandals. Benny just wants to hold firmly to that fundamental idea of ​​the cyclist: a wild spirit with an open road stretching out before him, free of obligations or responsibilities.

Because Benny is used as a canvas for the projections of others, the character sometimes feels empty. Fortunately, Butler’s phenomenal performance offers such irresistible sensuality that no one can question Johnny and Kathy’s unapologetic obsession with him.

While Hardy delivers a convincing performance with his sultry Brando-esque routine, it’s Comer’s Kathy who quickly becomes the heart of the story.

Her often funny account of the events is largely drawn from the interview recordings that Danny Lyon (a version of whom is played by Challengers’ Mike Faist in the film) collected to create his book.

Delivered in Comer’s astonishing Midwestern accent, it becomes a much-needed counterpoint to the men’s unapologetic masculinity.

Kathy recalls the club’s origins while folding clothes among other women at the local laundromat, a fundamentally female-dominated space (at the time, mind you) that represented domesticity while cyclists long for open roads and the sound of engines.

Women are banished to their cornered spaces as they watch everything unravel. Unfortunately, this dichotomy is never explored as cleverly as it is in these early moments.

After all, The Bikeriders focuses on dissecting the idea of ​​masculinity, showing the good, the bad and the ugly.

Yes, the gang members fight for leadership in a muddy field, talk endlessly about their motorcycles and drink themselves senseless at their local bar, but they never become a caricature of themselves.

Viewers may have preconceptions about what a motorcycle gang looks like, and this movie isn’t really interested in that. Nichols feels genuine sympathy for these characters, who are depicted as containing a multitude of emotions and desires.

They may try to be Brando in The Wild One, or Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider, but ultimately the performative nature of 1960s masculinity is as limiting as the romantic idea of ​​gray-haired men riding their bikes down the street. driving on. sunset.

The Bikeriders will be released in cinemas on June 21.

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