‘The Bikeriders’ review: Rebels without a cause

The Bikeriders is based on Danny Lyon’s photography book from 1967 about Outlaws MC, one of America’s numerous motorbike groups. Beginning in the 1960s and spanning a decade, Jeff Nichols’s good-looking movie follows the Vandals, a tight tribe that lives by its own code and is led by a charismatic chieftain. Events leads to the unravelling of a group that take pride in its outlier status but is unequipped to deal with changes from within.

While the Vandals are all men, their chronicler is a woman. In conversations with Danny Lyon (Mike Faist), Kathy (Jodie Comer) provides a perspective of the Vandals that is decidedly less romantic than the gang’s view of itself.

Kathy is a goner when she first lays eyes on Vandals member Benny (Austin Butler). Benny, who has the brooding mien of James Dean, is a favourite of the Vandals leader Johnny (Tom Hardy). Kathy is a witness to and participant in the group’s highs and lows, particularly locked in a turf war with Johnny over Benny’s loyalties.

Nichols’s screenplay imagines the Vandals as a biking version of a secretive Mafia family. Kathy’s voiceover, which has echoes of Martin Scorsese’s Mafia-themed Goodfellas (1990), is a mix of wonderment, irritation and helplessness. Try as she might,...

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