Unpopular Opinion: The Bikeriders
by Kristin Battestella
Although
nearly every other film lover I know adores The Bikeriders; it's
an understatement to say this 2023 Jeff Nichols (Mud) drama
starring Austin Butler (Elvis), Jodie Comer (Killing Eve),
and Tom Hardy (Lawless) was a disappointment for me. Poor
framework, confused narratives, weak characterizations, and muddled
storytelling are but a few of the numerous problems here. Presented
below are my stream of consciousness notes while critically viewing
The Bikeriders for an upcoming video guest appearance with The Jay Days Reviews Channel. These notes have been edited for corrections,
redundancy, and clarity.
The
Bikeriders takes place in the late 60s/early 70s yet the lighting
is far too contemporary with the dark gradient. The classic needle
drops don't work because it is so damn darkly light and edited with
today's look instead of a vintage feeling. Butler's Benny looks too
young for the time. Kathy's accent is juvenile. Is Benny's voice
fake, too? He sounds dubbed and humorous. How old are they supposed
to be? Everyone's playing at being tough. The entire framework
hinging on Kathy's point of view is silly. Why don't we start with
her walking into the club and meeting everyone for the first time?
This is very slow to get going, the narration says they get married
but then it's another music cue and motorcycle montage. Benny's a bad
boy howling on his bike but no one thinks he's bad ass except him and
her.
Twenty
minutes in and I want to skip ahead. The smirking, duck face, modern
squinting is not James Dean. All the important things – marriage,
arrests – are happening off camera. Kathy hear tells us what others
are thinking and feeling of how the club was founded and recounting
events before she was even there. It makes no frigging sense! Instead
of introducing everybody and the club forming in order, everything is
intercut and confusing with flashbacks. Why isn't this from Mike
Faist (Challengers) as the reporter Lyon's point of view?
We're meeting everyone through a third party asking questions of
another person who doesn't know? Is this about the forming of the
gang and the problems that ensue, Lyon covering the bad boys, or just
deluded Kathy? This needed less – the bikers, the interviewing, or
the woman ruffling feathers – yet all of them keep restarting with
empty montages and voiceovers. Very few scenes have dialogue and they
only last a few minutes. Everything Kathy is telling could have been
spoken.
Who's
perspective is this in scenes with Kathy's narration when she is not
present? For all the motorcycles, this is very slow with one biker
spouting wisdom, another contesting one, and one asking the reporter
why he's doing it. The subject is surprisingly light yet it's better
when the movie plays out without the disjointed narration and
montages. Every dramatic scene ends with a brawl, music cue, or
montage with no thematic payoff to whatever gang struggles are
supposed to be happening. Is the reporter Lyon even introduced as to
why he is there? Like they would let a kid with a camera hang around
while they are breaking people's legs? There is no emotion, touching,
or loving to our couple. Why are we supposed to be wowed by her
theorizing with the cigarette and the accent like she is so wise?
Kathy's an idiot in a shit relationship with shit people burning down
bars and wrestling in the mud. Why is she telling us what Johnny is
thinking rather than him speaking for himself?
Benny
hides out for weeks in a hotel but wannabe queen bee Kathy tells us
about it rather than the audience seeing any on the run tension. Is
Hardy's Johnny voice meant to be funny? He's closer to her husband
than she is, and without the narration or the interviewer maybe this
love triangle would have been better. Otherwise, everything is too
tame with no clear character motivations. Kathy wants him to quit
riding while she also smokes and brags about the gang life? She's the
drunken unnecessary entity in Benny's life. The reporter inexplicably
leaves, Johnny is not Brando, and Cry Baby had more action.
Benny and Johnny have so few scenes together, and one shadowed
homoerotic scene is too contemporary. A movie of the era would be
brightly lit with subtext in plain sight rather than using visuals to
hide something. It's all so playing dress up performative. Is this a
comedy? There's a funeral? Who died?
Our
tough guys give such sensitive speeches, but Johnny has so few
scenes. Conversations cut back to the reporter so Kathy can tell us a
year later the club changed. I don't think I've ever been so confused
by a film. Why don't we get to see anything in real time? Kathy isn't
with the gang for most of the time but she's telling us of bikers
coming back from Vietnam smoking pot, and the only way we're supposed
to know time has passed is because of the music cues? The characters
all look and act the same through any supposed changes. Everything is
strangely non-sexual and chaste yet it's Johnny who saves Kathy from
the gang violence, not her husband Benny. He's too busy blowing
smoke, literally, in another music montage. Who's story is this? When
does this movie end?
Kathy
says she can't live like this, but they never seemed married in the
first place. They are only in a handful of scenes together. It's
comical how she says an attempted rape would make her want to kill
herself and then goes on a tangent about people who kill themselves
being too stupid. She shouts at him to leave the club but Benny is so
soft spoken and unmoved it's as if they are in different scenes. The
intercutting between them makes it look like they didn't even film
the scene together. Nothing happens and this movie is a plain,
nonsensical mess. The viewer been knew Kathy is a non factor to Benny
and the gang but what little story there is is so damn routine,
missing the mark in depicting any motorcycle gang edgy. Everyone's
talking for Benny or about Benny but we hardly ever see him. Was the
framework created in the editing room to work around Butler?
Repeated
biker challenges don't mean anything, so let's wrap this up already.
We're told how it all ends after the fact in the last fifteen
minutes? Are we supposed to take the entire thing as just Kathy's
shitty unreliable point of view? How does she know anything? Why does
her opinion of the gang turning to real criminals and drugs after she
is away from it matter? It's ridiculous that the reporter shows up
again to ask what went down rather than audience seeing what actually
happened. How did they afford to move to Florida? It just ends with
foolish Kathy smiling like she got her way by doing absolutely
nothing other than being a pathetic sap. There's no twist that she
hired the guy to take care of Johnny? Bummer.
