It’s pretty likely that The Bikeriders is not the film you think it is. Watch the trailer, and you’ll have a pretty set vision of who these characters are. It introduces the Vandals, a biker gang set up by Tom Hardy’s Johnny in the ‘60s who drink, ride out, fight, and "sit around talking about bikes". Set to a soundtrack of The Rolling Stones, you can almost smell the gasoline and cigarette smoke through the screen. In short, they seem pretty bloody cool – and yet, Sons of Anarchy this is not.
Sure, the badass biker jackets, epic motorcycle shots, and Austin Butler being unbearably magnetic as Benny are all in there, but over the space of two hours, director and writer Jeff Nichols presents a group of (mainly) men desperate to be what they’re not. The Bikeriders isn’t about glamorizing the life of a motorcycle gang: in fact, it shows the dangers of a group spiraling out of control.
