I built this for nothing this is our family you and me kid that looks like my weekend that’s a snippet from the new movie The Bike riters directed by Jeff Nichols the crime drama is about a 1960s motorcycle club in mcook Illinois it stars Austin Butler and Tom Hardy as members of a club which evolves from a Gathering Place for local outcasts to a violent organized crime syndicate the bike riders opens in theaters today and joining us now in studio CBC entertainment reporter Jackson Weaver is here with his review so what kind of ride are we in for sounds like you know this the no autobiography clearly I am absolutely sure but what this movie the way that I kind of described it in the review I wrote on our website it’s less wild hogs more Zen In The Art of motor Motorcycle Maintenance this is a thinker this is not not your grandma’s motorcycle movie uh let’s say so this is um about the the the motorcycle group SL gang the vandals you see Austin Butler there he plays Benny one of our three main characters he is doing his best James Dean Rebel Without a Cause on a motorcycle impression that you could possibly imagine And he as I said is one of our main characters as we go in this very slow enigmatic sort of Journey that we get these chases here but it’s also the study of masculinity with Benny Austin Butler they at the core we also see there that’s the character Kathy played by Jody comr who kind of Falls for this guy which maybe understandably so yeah I mean who isn’t falling for this guy we just get a couple glimpses here we’re already doing it um and then also outside of that we get another character we get Tom Hardy playing the president of this biker club and together they they they make this trip tick I’ll say of characters that really showcase the late’ 60s the early ’70s era that that we’re talking about but I keep saying this is not really something that’s about the car or the motorcycle chases that’s about the violence which does happen which is about the greasy Long Hair Etc this is a study in what does it mean to be a man what does masculinity mean is it destructive but also is it kind of alluring it doesn’t look cool on a motorcycle but that is the vibe of this movie that’s the tone and instead of explaining it we have a little clip I want you to take a watch and you can see some of the ways that it hints around that some of the ways that it Tri SK into that question take a watch what are you thinking back there what hey there when you you come Ching in like that nothing I saw you going off with them guys what I need to think for hey you and me kid you and me you crazy you see Tom Hardy there giving his best you know Tom Hardy face let’s call it that but I also wanted to show that because you see motorcycles you see these guys you might be expecting the Rockham sockum sort of movie I don’t know but this is something entirely different and it’s very much up my alley I’ll say I’ll say that much okay I love the these Dimensions you’re bringing to the review about larger conversations I was joking it’s not obviously not my autobiography but I did grow up in my early stages riding a motorcycle like Dad always took us everywhere on his motorcycle four of us packed on their very Asian experience but this is based on a true story somewhat talk to us about that somewhat is a very good way to put it because this is about real people Benny really existed Kathy really existed um they are drawn from a book by the same name by a photographer Danny Leon the bike riders which is about 90 pages long I actually read it in its entirety in a couple hours because about 50 of those pages are just photographs of the freedom that you that was espoused in the mid early 60s when this book was actually written um and and that freedom that comes from from that life but also the last 40ish pages are these transcribed interviews and it’s just Danny Leon who has a bit part in the movie played by Mike Feist who oh my goodness if you watch Challengers you know how great he is but he’s a very small role of this where he just raised the microphone got them to speak to him and almost the entirety of the dialogue in this movie is just lifted straight from that now this is directed written by Jeff Nichols who you might know from take shelter another movie that’s a little bit esoteric a little bit out there or um Mud with Matthew mccon and they do have this tendency to be almost Boyhood esque that Richard L later slow think he sort of movie and he always spoused he always mixes that in with questions of masculinity that’s absolutely what happens here and he really built out these stories cuz again this is just an interview um that he is able to tell a story out of largely from the perspective of Kathy largely from this very very very impressive role by jod comr and I I don’t know how true we can say this story is but they are real people and they’re real experiences and you really get a sense of the characters from that okay I think I know what you’re going to say but should we go along for the ride with bike riders oh my goodness this is another I sometimes have movies that I love so dearly but also don’t want to oversell cuz I know it’s not they’re not everybody’s thing I do think this is worth watching this is worth seeing for the way that it it tells these stor it shows this iconography of masculinity in a different way than we might expect I would not recommend it to the crowd that just again wants to see you know high octane we have motorcycles we do not have high octane here this is not bad boys five this is not bad boys 5 but there are you know Easy Rider great film um but this is not necessarily the same sort of conversation as that but if you do want to you know relax back in your seat a little bit go for a ride why not okay four out of five stars is what I’m going to give it here and we got a pretty great graphic and yeah if you have some time this weekend check it out you definitely sold me cbc’s entertainment reporter Jackson Weaver vroom vroom we were oh that’s hard to say thank you so much
The Bikeriders exists in a special club of films that exploit a subculture’s wildest dreams to showcase their absurdity: everything from The Wolf of Wall Street to Whiplash, American Psycho to Fight Club.
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