Some Thoughts on The Bikeriders and Tom Hardy

Hot guys on bikes (liked it) and Tom Hardy’s choices (loved him.)

It all starts out so innocently. In The Bikeriders, the new film from writer-director Jeff Nichols, the world of motorcycle gangs seems impeccably glamorous and relatively safe. Danny Lyon (Mike Faist, playing a real photographer who documented biker clubs in the '60s) interviews Kathy Bauer (Jodie Comer) about this near-mythic world and those who populate it. That includes her husband Benny Cross (Austin Butler - so hot), a member of the Chicago Vandals. The club is headed by Johnny Davis, played by Tom Hardy, a beloved president who wants to keep the peace, in-between a few fist fights and traffic violations. It doesn’t take long, however, for their safe space to become overwhelmed by rot and brutality.

Inspired by true events (the Vandals are based on the Outlaws MC, which still exist and is designated an organized crime syndicate by the FBI), The Bikeriders feels like a natural fit for Nichols. His best films, particularly Take Shelter and Mud, are all about men looking for something greater than themselves and their simple lives. Of course he would want to make something about biker gangs, the bastions of fetishized masculinity that are simultaneously highly toxic and intensely alluring (and also queer as hell, which is lightly coded throughout the film, particularly between Butler and Hardy’s interactions.) Ultimately, this is about guys who just want to hang out with their friends and feel good about themselves. These men start out as absolute nerds!

Yet where the film fails is in how little it moves beyond its initial set-ups for these characters. Butler’s Benny is ostensibly the conflicted protagonist but we get very little about his motivation beyond him being a hot guy who loves his hobby. There was so much room for Nichols to delve into how his obsession began to devour everything surrounding his mostly easy life but it’s all discarded. Jodie Comer and her excellent Chicago accent are eminently watchable but Kathy never gets to be more than the concerned old lady of Benny. I kept thinking of that SNL sketch of Angel, the girlfriend of every movie boxer.

It’s always good to see Mike Faist, even if all he does here is take photos and hold up a microphone. The real-life Danny Lyon is a fascinating figure. He became a joined-up member of the Outlaws as a way to document them and saw first-hand how the group went from his fantasy vision of biker heaven to a cesspit of Nazis and murder. Surely he would have made for a more penetrating POV character than Butler or Comer? The Bikeriders cries out for a sturdy centre, something to make its narrative deeper or at least more consistent. It’s all inspired by Lyon’s photographs and you get the sense the script struggled to build upon these visuals beyond the archetypes.

Hardy is easily the best thing in the film, in part because he’s sadly the only character with a cohesive arc. As Johnny, he’s a perfectly nice guy whose hobby gets out of hand. For him, a biker gang isn’t an excuse to be malicious or wield power, at least not at first. We see that he watched The Wild One and almost immediately decided to model his life on Marlon Brando. He is essentially a fanboy, almost dorkily so, and Hardy is excellent at showing that sweetness in the early days. Johnny’s no pushover. He can fight and claw and command respect. But he’s also there for fun. When a member challenges him for the role of leader, it’s obvious that nobody is taking this threat all that seriously, and after Johnny wins the scuffle (which plays out like gangly teenage boys stumbling in the mud), everyone goes back to normal. In these days, when it’s all guys being dudes, Johnny is the ideal leader.

But then things grow. The fandom gets bigger, more unwieldy. They gain enemies and allies, including members who are far more zealous about biker life and its ills than the originals. So Johnny hardens. He finds that the authorities are terrified of him, and he has no idea how to react to it. In one scene, where he makes a dark decision that signals a turning point of sorts for the group, we see Hardy’s big eyes widen and full lips tighten. It’s the expression of a man realizing, all of a sudden, that it’s gotten too big for him. This isn’t what he wanted, and though there’s an undeniable thrill to being crowned the king of the castle, it’s more than he ever asked for or desired. In that moment, the inherent boyishness of Hardy shines through to ideal effect.

Tom Hardy is a fascinating figure. He’s a posh kid and reformed bad boy who overcame addiction to become a jiu-jitsu expert and dog lover who can also act the hell out of the screen. He’s extremely pretty as my mum likes to remind me, but he can make that matinee idol softness so flinty and unnerving at the drop of a hat. He’s reliably unpredictable, for better or worse, although I must admit that I tend to give more leniency to actors who take big swings than those who play it safe.

For me, Hardy’s appeal lies in how he’s retained the attitude of a jobbing actor. Sure, that sometimes means he’s in some dreck, but then you’ll see him in odd ensemble pieces like London Road, a verbatim musical about the Suffolk Strangler. There's a malleable quality to him that makes him a good fit for a variety of types - historical, contemporary, drama, comedy, action - but also a freeing one that allows him to make capital-C Choices. When he does a passion project, it’s truly the kind of thing that only gets made when a big star commands it, such as the extremely odd TV series Taboo, which he wrote with his father Chips Hardy.

Even his superhero movie, which is now an expected part of any modern actor’s career, is an unexpected flex. Venom should be abysmal. Instead, Hardy almost single-handedly twisted it into a rom-com about a very sweaty man and his emotional support parasite. His performance(s) are almost gonzo, the sort of over-committed freneticism that you almost wonder is too good for the material. Sony clearly wanted a brooding anti-hero tale. Hardy gave them panicky madness. We wouldn’t be getting a third one of these if Hardy had played it safe and not jumped into that lobster tank.

For all of Hardy’s big choices in films like Venom (and Legend, where it’s less effective and goes a bit panto), he can also pull it back. The Bikeriders largely rests on his shoulders and his ability to be the safe port in an increasingly fraught storm. It’s Tom Hardy who makes you believe that these boys and their toys are worth fighting for, even when the film itself struggles to get beyond its gripping set-up.

The Bikeriders is in cinemas now.

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In case you missed it, I launched a new chapter of the Gossip Reading Club lore. It’s called Do You Remember and it’s going to be focused on random celebrity moments of the past and present that I spend way too much time thinking about. The first piece is all about the Michael Douglas/Catherine Zeta Jones wedding and how two tabloid magazines’ battle to get the first images of the event led to some messy courtroom drama. This will be a paid subscribers exclusive so please let me know what you think.