Starring Austin Butler and Tom Hardy, the latest film about the leather-jacketed rebels is inspired by the story of a real-life biker gang – and is a reminder of their dangerous appeal. The revving vibration of a chrome engine, the acidic smell of tarmac and motor oil, wind in the hair and two wheels on the road: few vehicles are as writ large on the subconscious of the cinema-going public as the motorcycle. Jeff Nichols' new film The Bike Riders is loosely based on the early years of real-life biker gang the Chicago Outlaws, who are fictionalised onscreen as the Vandals, and mythologises them and their journey from innocence to experience in the advancing years of the 1960s.
Revealing an arch awareness of the films of bikers past, Nichols borrows from a rich lexicon of cultural fascination with the mirage of the leather-jacketed rebel. The Bikeriders is based on a landmark book of photojournalism from Danny Lyon, who as a young man in the early 1960s joined the motorcycle club to learn about and photograph the rough-and-ready outsiders who populated it. The film draws on many of the actual bikers who Lyon hung out with, including Austin Butler as Benny, the gang's wildest and most charismatic member, with Jodie Comer as his girl Kathy and Tom Hardy as Johnny, the leader of the group.
It's Kathy, though, who narrates the story, and from whose point of view it is told: depicted onscreen speaking to an audio recorder in laundromats and living rooms, in real-life she also spok.
