The Bikeriders - 4K Blu-ray Review

Movie
As a huge bike rider since the late 90s, I had a bit of a bug in my ear to watch The Bikeriders the second I saw the press release. Based off of Danny Lyon’s book of the same name chronicling the rise of early days of the infamous Vandals bike gang (really the Outlaws, as this version of the Vandals is a fictitious group vs. the group that is active today), and their impact upon the whole riding club (e.g. biker gangs) phenomenon. Personally I’ve never read Lyons book, but I hear it was a pretty good read, especially if you know anybody in the biking club world. But, I was willing to see the movie with an open mind and check it out. End result you might ask? A pretty good semi documentary style film about Johnny (Tom Hardy) and the Vandals as told through the eyes of his second, Benny (Austin Butler) and narrated by Benny’s wife Kathy (Jodie Comer)

Our film starts out with a narration by Kathy, a normal Chicago girl, who gets swept up with bike rider Benny back in the 1960s. Kathy is smitten with the scraggly bike rider despite loathing the rest of the “animals” in Benny’s club, and soon gets immersed in the world of the Vandals bike club. Things seem exciting and new at first, but soon Kathy learns the hard truth of being in a bike club. While they weren’t the full on organized criminal organization that bike clubs became later in the 80s and 90s, the Vandals were nobody to be trifled with either. As Kathy soon finds out when the club put the beat down on a few disrespectful punks, and Benny almost loses a foot due to an out of control bar fight with someone who wasn’t wild about the gang. But Benny is not one to leave a club simply because things get tough. No, this is a lifestyle. A way of life and sense of camaraderie among outcasts from the rest of society.

The film is a strange mix of fiction and movie magic, taking pieces of Lyon’s book (by all accounts) and blending in your typical movie drama to sort of make it make sense. Lyons supposedly spent several years following the vandals around the place, recording them and taking pictures so that he could write his book, meaning that the ACTUAL events were more staggered and spread out. That being said, they also sort of lionized Lyons as well. In the movie he’s portrayed as a slick talking college graduate who just hung around the fringes, but in real life he actually became a member and rode with them, participating in the tomfoolery. But hey, it makes the audience feel better looking at Lyons as that nice outsider who is just documenting the beastly activities of the bikers.

The story itself is 90% fiction, with elements of the real events of Lyons book thrown in for good measure. Nichols paints the film as a sort of love story between Kathy and Benny, using it as a jumping point for the viewer to get immersed in the world of the Vandals, and follow him through the events that leads to his eventual separation from the club. It works as as sort of bookend to the movie, giving the audience that heroic self sacrifice to push things along, but at times the movie feels like it’s struggling to really have a solid 3 arc narrative. Instead it feels like a slice of life film that is languidly spread across nearly 8 years (in the movie it was from 1965 to 1973, while in reality Lyons ran his information gathering from 1963 to 1967). It has its good points, and it has it’s slow points. Norman Reedus stops in as a California biker (with a hilarious set of filed down dentures) and Tom Hardy is top notch as Chicago tough talking/walking Danny. Austin Butler was the one character that stood out as being awkward though. He was just a bit too suave, a bit too smooth to really feel like one of the bikers. Maybe it was part of the fantasy of the movie, but he seemed just a bit out of place.




Rating:

Rated R for language throughout, violence, some drug use and brief sexuality.




4K Video: Video:

Judging by the photos I could dig up online, it’s pretty obvious that writer/director Jeff Nichols took great effort to simulate the visuals and the aesthetics of Lyons photos. Looking at the pictures side by side, he actually mimicked the look and feel of each biker down to a T, and even graded the film so that it looked a bit milky and hazy, with pastel blues and 1970s mauve and browns like those old 1970s films of the past. While there is some VERY distinct stylization going on here, the detail levels are generally fantastic, with excellent facial and clothing details, with only a few small instances (usually dark shots inside the bar) that utilized that milky black level I mentioned above to really count as a negative. Shot entirely on actual film stock (a shock in this day and age), it has a wonderfully organic texture that not only fits the time period, but adds a warmth and richness to the film that I don’t think would have been there with a digital shoot.







Audio:

We’ve had a glut of really great Atmos tracks recently, and the Atmos track found on The Bikeriders (both the Blu-ray and the 4K UHD disc, thank you Universal) is one of them. It’s not going to be as nuanced as say The Fall Guy or as insanely powerful as Furiosa, but it is an extremely balanced mix that I can literally find no fault in. The dialog is spot on perfect throughout, with Kathy’s narration coming through loud and clear. Fidelity in the surround channels is amazing, with the humming and roaring of the bikes encompassing the listening station, but also a nuanced sense of immersion with the background yelling, rumbling and ambient noises of Sturgis like party, or the noisy bar. Bass is downright punishing, with the throbbing of the heavy duty engines lifting you out of your seat. It’s not too over the top, but as I said, this is an incredibly BALANCED mix. Bass is powerful and kicks some serious butt when needed, but it doesn’t take over the track when it’s not welcome.







Extras:

• Johnny, Benny, & Kathy - From the accents to the attitude, get to know the lead characters of THE BIKERIDERS. Hear from the cast and producing team on how they took the personalities and environments from a book of photographs and brought a narrative to the big screen.
• The Era of THE BIKERIDERS - Grab your leather jacket and gear up for a ride as we enter the era of THE BIKERIDERS. This piece focuses on the authenticity that was captured by the brilliant production team who nailed the look, feel, and sound of the late 1960s Midwest.
• The Filmmaker's Eye: Jeff Nichols - Go behind the lens with director Jeff Nichols as he shared his overall vision for the film, stylistic choices, and how he works with talent. Members of the ensemble cast along with producers chime in on the significance of working on a Jeff Nichols film.
• Feature Commentary with Writer/Director Jeff Nichols














At the end of the day, The Bikeriders is a good look at bike club history. It doesn’t go over the top with the criminality like the 80s and 90s were famous for, but instead looks back on the formation of the clubs with a sense of loving nostalgia. Covering up some of the more sordid elements of the clubs, but still making it known that they weren’t exactly reputable people. Universal’s 4K UHD disc looks and sounds great, with a wonderfully stylized look that really fits the motif of the book AND the subject matter. Definitely check it out if you’re a fan of slow burn dramas and classic bikes in general.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, Michael Shannon, Tom Hardy, Beau Knapp
Directed by: Jeff Nichols
Written by: Jeff Nichols
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), German Atmos, Spanish, French, Italian DD+ 7.1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
Studio: Universal
Rated: R
Runtime: 116 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: August 13th 2024